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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29364618">Let the Devil In</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SalParadiseLost/pseuds/SalParadiseLost'>SalParadiseLost</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Demon in the Details [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Accidental Brother Acquisition, Angst, Brothers, Damian Wayne Needs a Hug, Demon Damian Wayne, Demon Jason Todd, Demon Tim Drake, Demons, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Gen, He Also Need's a Pack, Human Bruce Wayne, Human Dick Grayson, Hurt/Comfort, I can't believe i almost forgot this one, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Incubi, Jason Todd and His Big Brother Instincts, Jason Todd is Bad at Feelings, Jason Todd is Not Happy, Pack Bonding, Pack Dynamics, Protective Jason Todd, Sibling Bonding, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, no beta we die like robins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 02:42:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,029</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29364618</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SalParadiseLost/pseuds/SalParadiseLost</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce brings Damian home. He’s hoping for an easy integration of the little demon into the Wayne pack.</p><p>That isn’t what he gets.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dick Grayson &amp; Jason Todd, Jason Todd &amp; Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd &amp; Damian Wayne, Tim Drake &amp; Damian Wayne, Tim Drake &amp; Dick Grayson, Tim Drake &amp; Dick Grayson &amp; Jason Todd &amp; Bruce Wayne &amp; Damian Wayne, Tim Drake &amp; Jason Todd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Demon in the Details [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2151114</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>274</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1256</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29189970">Body heat</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pink_and_Purple_Daisies/pseuds/Pink_and_Purple_Daisies">Pink_and_Purple_Daisies</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a continuation of my other demon fic that introduces the concepts of incubi and bonding in this au. You should probably read that one before this one. </p><p>Also still eternal thank you's to Daisy whose wonderful incubi au fic inspired this au. Please check her work out. It's wonderful and you won't regret it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Bruce had felt his heart fill this way three other times in his life.</p><p>First was with Dick, when the boy had snuck into his bed after a nightmare. It had been the first time he had been called ‘dad’ in his lifetime and everything else in world paled in comparison.</p><p>The second was with Jason, when the young incubus had finally been able to form a bond with him and he had felt Jason’s relief and affection and hope all directed at him. He knew instantly that he would die for the child.</p><p>The third time was with Tim, a child who didn’t even know what he was and had thought he deserved to be alone in the world. It happened when the kid had tentatively padded into his study and asked to sit next to him on the loveseat. The night had ended with the boy on his lap, mumbling sleepy ramblings into his chest, and Bruce promising to keep all the loneliness away.</p><p>The fourth time was just as sudden and just as startling. Once Talia had told him who the boy was and then promptly dumped the child in his arms to take care of, he had felt it stirring. It didn’t fully form just then, but he suspected it was coming, like a storm brewing off of the coast.</p><p>Getting Damian ready to go had been a quick and silent affair. He had a single bag, already packed, and Bruce watched as he gathered it up without a blink. His actions were almost clinical, and lacked the emotion that Bruce attributed to ten-year olds.</p><p>The only hesitation had come when he turned, ready to leave his bedroom forever, and his eyes caught on a thin blanket folded up on the bed. It was so quick that Bruce almost missed it, but he caught the boy’s lip wobble and the small flash of trepidation enter his eyes.</p><p>He looked like he might reach for it but decided against it and walked to Bruce with the single, small bag of his home.</p><p>“I’m ready to leave, Father,” he said primly, before passing the man and walking out.</p><p>Bruce stood in the door, eyes flicking to the blanket before he grabbed it in a split-second decision. It must have been important to the boy for one reason or another, and he would be sure to appreciate it later.</p><p>He followed his new son to the waiting plane. He was more than ready to leave and get out of the place that stank of death.</p><p>Damian’s mother stood nearby, ready to wish them both good-bye.</p><p>She gave Bruce a small nod and her rigid posture didn’t waver.</p><p>She gave Damian a pat on the shoulder and a quick word in Arabic, before switching back to English. She placed a hand on his head and slipped the other under his shirt so it rested between his shoulder blades.</p><p>The boy tensed between her hands, like he was preparing to be hit, and a sinking feeling started to dive down Bruce’s stomach.</p><p>“Damian Al Ghul, little Prince of Demons, I renounce you.” Talia said with clear command in her voice. Damian flinched like the words physically hurt, and just the smallest whine rose out of his throat. Talia didn’t stop talking, though. “I strip you of your name and your rank, so that you may make your path on your own. Do not disappoint me.”</p><p>She released the boy and he stumbled away, a hand going to his chest. He looked back at his Mother and the woman only looked at him like she was regarding a stranger.</p><p>Suddenly, Damian looked impossibly small, just a child lost on the gangway to a plane. And then, he turned and silently went into the jet without another glance back.</p><p>“What was that?” Bruce snarled, rounding on Talia the moment the boy was out of sight.</p><p>Talia smiled and Bruce was keenly aware of the fangs behind those lips. “Bonds need to be broken in order for him to make new ones.”</p><p>Bruce’s mind flashed to the bonds in his own chest and how they had become one of the most important parts of his life. They were a physical connection to his boys and irrefutable proof that they were alive, happy, and healthy.</p><p>There wasn’t enough money in the world you could offer him to break those bonds. He had felt what it was to have a bond snapped before, and he prayed every day of his life that he wouldn’t have to live through that again.</p><p>In a small impulse, he tugged at the bonds in his chest. Within a few moments, all three of the bonds responded, Jason’s flaring the brightest, with Tim and Dick’s coming in weaker. He felt the flickers of their concern and suspected that they might be calling him soon.</p><p>He couldn’t imagine living without them, let alone purposefully breaking one.</p><p>And Talia had just done it without a blink.</p><p>Bruce didn’t know what to say, but he did know that there was a little impling sitting in his cockpit waiting to be taken home. That was infinitely more important than dealing with Talia.</p><p>He gave the woman one last dirty look before turning and getting into the plane.</p><p>The small boy was curled up in a miserable heap when he sat in the pilot’s seat. The kid met his eyes once, before shifting so his back was turned to him. He was quite literally giving Bruce the cold shoulder.</p><p>“Your mother said your name was Damian?” He asked, trying to keep some of the natural gruffness out of his voice.</p><p>The kid only seemed to hunch in on himself further. “It can be. If that’s what you decide to name me."</p><p>A sick feeling crawled through Bruce’s guts. The kid couldn’t seriously think that Bruce was going to rename him like he was some kind of adopted puppy.</p><p>“I am not changing your name, Damian.”</p><p>There was a long pause, before he heard an almost imperceptible ‘thank you’.</p><p>It tore a little piece of his heart apart and Bruce felt that now familiar feeling begin to bubble in his chest.</p><p>A voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Dick’s teased him about how his <em>adopt this child </em>senses were tingling.</p><p>He sighed, looking down into his lap, where the colourful patterned blanket rested. Gently, he took the blanket and laid it around the boy’s shoulders.</p><p>Damian startled, momentarily shocked by the blanket, before burrowing into it with a childish whine. There was more vulnerability in the sound than the boy had shown all that evening. He risked a glance to Bruce with a deep, unreadable look, before it melted in a faint smile.</p><p>Finally, he did something right.</p><p>“We’re going home, son,” Bruce assured the sullen kid. “Then, everything will be alright.”</p><p>In his chest, his other bonds were bouncing, signalling that his other kids were active and about. The sense of pack was full and vibrant and ready to welcome Damian into it.</p><p>It settled the frantic feeling in Bruce and helped assure him that everything would really be okay.</p><p>Jason had welcomed Tim easily into the pack… Well, maybe ‘easy’ wasn’t the right word. There had been the whole ‘Jason tried to attack and threaten Tim before basically adopting the impling’ thing. But now the two demons were brothers and, even though Jason still threatened Tim sometimes, there wasn’t any real heat behind it.</p><p>In the end, it all worked out okay. Jason had bonded with Tim and restrengthened his connections to Bruce, Alfred, and Dick. He had made them all a Pack again, and Bruce was sure that he’d welcome Damian in too.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>Jason should have known the day would be shitty when he woke up and Dick was <em>already </em>hugging him.</p><p>“Get off,” he hissed, glaring up at the ceiling and regretting all the decisions he had ever made to get to this point.</p><p>Maybe he could still leave? Cut his bonds and go back to being a lone wolf? Maybe, if he could escape his brother’s grip.</p><p>Dick, the traitor, just tightened the arms around his chest and gave a contented sigh. The human’s feelings were bouncing in pleasure and the sickly sweetness of it made Jason want to gag.</p><p>“I can’t get off,” he murmured, rubbing his cheek into Jason’s shoulder. “The bed is too comfy, and you are obviously starving.”</p><p>Jason sighed, knowing exactly how futile this argument was. Dick had used this cuddle tactic since he was a little kid. “I’m not even hungry, Dickface, you’re just exploiting me.”</p><p>“Yep,” Dick chirped, impossibly cuddling more. “Terrible exploitation. Horrible. The worst kind.”</p><p>Jason sighed again, lifting a hand to pinch the developing headache between his forehead. “Can’t you go and bother Baby Bird? I’m sure he’s actually starving.”</p><p>“He kicked me out,” Dick grumbled, “Literally too. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have a bruise on my butt and I don’t even know how I’m going to explain it to Bruce.”</p><p>“Serves you right,” Jason chuckled. They descended into a comfortable silence and Jason would never admit how nice it felt to just be there. Dick was warm, with no strings attached to his affection, and Jason realised that he wasn’t waiting for the other shoe to drop. He could be there. He could be comfortable. Everything was settled and there weren’t any confusing pack dynamics or bond drama to struggle through.</p><p>Dick’s hand came up and gently pet the white stripe in Jason’s hair. The emotions between them bounced all bubbly and warm, amplified by the contented demon. It was so nice that it seemed impossible.</p><p>Some treacherous part of him still thought that one of these days he would wake up and be back in in a cold and lonely grave. That this could all be a ruse or a poisonous picture of things he couldn’t have, and it was going to come crashing down around his feet. He would realise that the bonds in his chest were just figments of his imagination, and he would go back to living as lonely, packless ghost of himself.</p><p>He kept waiting, waiting for them all to prove him right and shove him away, but his pack miraculously stayed around him.</p><p>Almost like… almost like they really wanted him there.</p><p>His heart felt impossibly full in his chest, a fuzzy warm feeling that felt good and scared him at the same time. God, it was so much, and he had the sudden urge to scramble away.</p><p>But Dick and his freaky hug sixth sense, tightened his hold and pulled Jason closer to him. He made that stupid human-attempting-to-purr sound that Jason would never admit that he loved and sent affection through the bond. It settled the traitorous part of Jason said he didn’t deserve this and grounded him back into reality.</p><p>A reality that was too good to be true, and yet, was somehow real.</p><p>And, in a rare moment of Jason’s life, he let himself believe it.</p><p>Which really should have been the first warning to Jason, because nothing in his life came without a price.</p><p>“Bruce comes back today,” Dick said out of the blue, tapping his fingers against Jason’s chest.</p><p>Jason wouldn’t admit that he was grateful for that. Bruce had left in a hurry last week with no explanation and only a quick word of goodbye. The energy from him had been shocked and frenetic and the feelings had leeched through the bond setting them all on edge.</p><p>Dick had been huggier than ever, keeping close and not letting either of his brothers out of his sight. Tim… Tim had just been heart-breaking. He had had too many parental figures leave him behind to protest Bruce’s departure and now, he wandered the Manor with a listless, resigned look on his face.</p><p>He looked like a kicked puppy and Bruce better have a good explanation for this or else Jason would break his face.</p><p>Thankfully, in a stunning show of correct parenting, Bruce had stayed in contact with them, although didn’t tell them where he was or when he would come back.</p><p>It was better than nothing, but Jason was more than ready to have the Head of the pack come home and settle the frantic edge that kept tugging at the bonds.</p><p>“Did he tell you why he was going?” Jason asked, subconsciously twining his finger through one of Dick’s curls.</p><p>Dick shrugged, “He said something about picking something up when we talked last. But you know him, when he doesn’t want to talk, he just gets all vague and Batman-y.”</p><p>“Yeah, I know,” Jason said gruffly and it did nothing to calm the worried part of him.</p><p>They sat in companionable silence for a few moments, before Jason’s stomach growled and he knew he would have to actually eat instead of just leeching emotion off of Dick.</p><p>“Alright, get up for real Dickiebird, let’s see if we can lure Timbo out with the scent of coffee.” Jason shoved the human off of him and the bed, taking satisfaction in the thump of Dick hitting the floor. He yelped, but Jason knew he would be fine. Dick had more than enough cushion in the ass department.</p><p>“That was mean,” Dick squawked, twisting off the floor and getting up in a fluid motion. He dramatically dusted himself off, putting hands on his hips. “And to think I fed you this morning.”</p><p>Jason rolled his eyes, shoving past him and on his way to the kitchen. “I didn’t ask for you to feed me and I’m pretty sure that was demon abuse.”</p><p>Dick snorted, playfully pushing at his shoulder. The human pulled at the bonds and it felt a little like a puppy yanking at toy rope.</p><p>When they got to the kitchen, they found Alfred already at the stove making crepes. Tim had crawled his way down from his room and was clutching a mug of coffee to his chest. The little impling looked utterly pathetic and like he might pass out at any moment.</p><p>It looked way too much like Tim had before Jason taught him how to feed and sent the protective instincts in Jason scrambling. They had been working on getting Tim out of his habit of letting himself go hungry in order not to bother anyone. Dick, of course, was more than happy to cuddle the kid, but Tim wasn’t completely comfortable with human contact yet and didn’t appreciate Dick’s random hug attacks.</p><p>It would be so much easier if Tim would just ask for contact instead of letting himself get this hungry.</p><p>But getting the kid to ask for a hug was like pulling teeth.</p><p>“Timothy Jackson,” Jason snapped, making the impling startle and stare up at him with bleary, wide eyes.</p><p>Jason didn’t need to look behind him to know that Dick was grinning like a loon.</p><p>Tim raised an eyebrow, apparently confused as to why Jason was yelling at him. “Jason Peter?”</p><p>The kid probably didn’t even realise how hungry he was. God, this was giving Jason a headache and he had the sudden urge to punch the Drakes again for not teaching their incubus child how to <em>not starve.</em></p><p>“Richard John,” Dick chirped, sidling up to Tim’s side.  </p><p>Jason still stood in the middle of the kitchen with his hands on his hips. “When was the last time you ate?”</p><p>Tim’s eyes flickered to the crepes sitting in front of him and Jason rolled his eyes.</p><p>“No, impling, I mean <em>emotion</em> eat.”</p><p>“Oh,” Tim trailed off, looking at the marble countertop in front of him and that was all the answer Jason needed.</p><p>God, this kid had the survival instincts of a paper bag.</p><p>“Dick,” Jason said and their older brother’s grin widened. “Have at him.”</p><p>Jason turned his back to the two, listening to Tim yelp and Dick laugh. He greeted Alfred with a quick kiss on the cheek and felt his normally quiet bond hum in satisfaction.</p><p>“Good morning, Master Jason. Thank you for threatening Master Tim into eating. I was fearing that I would have to drag him to Master Dick’s room after breakfast.”</p><p>Jason chuckled, turning to look back at his brothers. Tim was now grumpily wrapped in a hug with Dick precariously balanced on the kitchen island.</p><p>“Timbo, remember you actually have to <em>feed </em>not just sit there while he hugs you.”</p><p>“It’s hard, though,” Tim grumbled.</p><p>That hurt his heart a bit because it really <em>wasn’t </em>hard. At this age, it should be as easy as breathing for Tim. Jason fed with almost every casual touch he gave to his family members, sapping and reflecting emotion constantly in the Manor. They were all so receptive to it that he didn’t even have to think about actually making the effort to feed himself most of the time.</p><p>The fact that Tim described it as hard, just proved how inexperienced and underdeveloped he was.</p><p>The urge to punch the Drakes tripled.</p><p>“Here, my boy,” Alfred offered him a plate of crepes filled with his favourite toppings. “Eat up, Master Bruce should be arriving promptly.”</p><p>He lifted an eyebrow. “How soon?”</p><p>“Any moment, I imagine. He called me about two hours ago to inform me that he was on his way back from the airport.”</p><p>Oh, then it really would be soon.</p><p>Jason moseyed his way over to the kitchen island and leaned on it to eat his crepes. Incubi didn’t necessarily <em>need </em>to eat if they were well-fed with emotions, but food was damn good. Especially Alfred’s food. He wasn’t going to ever pass that up.</p><p>He watched casually as Tim tried to struggle out of Dick’s hold and Dick didn’t let go a bit. The little impling kept shooting him looks of help, which Jason just smirked off.</p><p>Tim sent a bit of annoyance through the bond, which Jason ignored.</p><p>Hugs were good for the kid. Anyways, trying to intervene might mean that he would get caught in the Dick hug. Which he had already had enough of this morning.</p><p>Tim kept staring at him, big blue eyes looking especially pathetic. He blinked and goddammit he wasn’t going to let this work…</p><p>He was just about to say something really obnoxious, when the front door of the Manor opened, announcing Bruce’s return.</p><p>Dick perked up like a dog, scrambling to the ground. “Bruce is back,” he declared happily, already making his way to the front hall. Tim sighed in relief at being released and slid out of the chair. Jason came to his side, shot him a smirk, before shoving past him and going towards the entryway.</p><p>The younger demon sighed in exasperation that might have had the littlest bit of affection under it and followed behind Jason.</p><p>Jason got to the front hall and saw that Dick was still standing in the entryway, paused and uncertain. Which was weird because he should be flinging himself at Bruce, grabbing on to him like the overgrown koala he was.</p><p>Not standing off to the side with hesitation.</p><p>It set off the alarm bells in Jason’s head and made him put himself in front of Tim just a little more. He approached cautiously, silently looking over Dick’s shoulder to see whatever made him pause.</p><p>Bruce was standing there, looking larger than life and as endlessly confident as he usually was. He seemed tired, a little haggard at the edges, but grateful to be home. His bond warmed with happiness as he set his eyes on his sons.</p><p>“Boys,” he greeted and then almost immediately looked down. Jason’s eyebrows furrowed and he followed the man’s gaze to the small boy hiding behind his legs.</p><p>A stranger? His instincts were instantly put on alert and he curiously probed at the emotions swirling in the air. There was curiosity coming from him and his brothers and naked hope coming from their father.</p><p>The stranger, though, had a weird clash of trepidation, loneliness and … confidence? It tasted wrong on Jason’s tongue, and made him scrunch his nose. And underneath the emotions was the familiar sting of sulphur.</p><p>The stranger was a demon, and the protective instincts in Jason rose. He narrowed his eyes and fought to keep a growl from his throat. Across the hall, the little demon must have also recognised both Tim and Jason, because suddenly he shoved the more vulnerable emotions to the side and heightened his confidence and aggression.</p><p>The intense force of it filled Jason’s senses and he nearly coughed on it. What the hell was this little half-pint even trying to do? Why had Bruce brought him here?</p><p>Bruce looked like he was about to explain, but then the small demon shoved past the man, meeting Jason’s eyes with an arrogant frown. His pupils sharpened on him and the air instantly filled with wariness. The smell of sulphur cloyed Jason’s senses and he fought to recognise the species-specific traits under it.</p><p>But then, it came through, heavy spices, brunt wood, and old paper. It was a scent Jason knew very well. One that had permeated the air when his father came home drunk and ready to pound him or his mother into the floor. It punctuated his nightmares, and covered him like oil. It was a species identifier that could only bring pain and rip his pack apart. Just like it had done before when Jason was an impling huddled against his mother as the figure of Willis stood above him, belt in hand. </p><p>He knew the force behind those fists, and there was no way in the seven circles of Hell he was going to let this creature hurt his pack.</p><p>In a quick movement, he was shoving Tim and Dick behind him, putting himself between them and the strange demon. He flashed his fangs, letting the demon see exactly how big and terrifying he was.</p><p>“Luciferean,” Jason hissed, his voice dripping with aggression.</p><p>“Incubus,” the little demon hissed back with same intense force.</p><p>The kid was tiny but had all the inherent arrogance of his species. He could just see it etched into him: the conceit, the power-lust, the egotistical hubris. The silent promise in his eyes, the one that guaranteed to shatter the small peace Jason had fought to establish in his pack.</p><p>The Luciferean knew it too. He saw it in the gaze that trailed over Jason’s body with a sharp, unimpressed look.</p><p>“Father, I wasn’t aware you kept sex toys in the house.”</p><p>Dick made a choking sound behind him and it took everything in Jason not to lunge at the kid and scare him out of his home. Every single demon instinct he had was screaming at him to <em>Shield. Protect. Get Away from Pack. </em>And he felt his face twisting into a snarl. He growled and the noise was low, rolling with demonic fury.</p><p>“Leave Luciferean,” he commanded, leaking every bit of his authority into his voice. “Leave now and I’ll let you go with all your bones still intact.”</p><p>“Jason!” Bruce barked, making everyone in the room flinch. Jason’s growl fell in his throat as he looked between the Head of his Pack and the Luciferean. Bruce was standing too close to the stranger.</p><p>He needed to get Bruce away from the stranger.</p><p>Jason growled, the sound promising violence. The little Luciferean only met his eyes with a smug grin that showed his fangs. Jason deepened the sound, and Bruce’s look grew stormier.</p><p>“Jason,” his Head snapped, and authority travelled through his bonds with Jason. It didn’t matter that Bruce was a human, the message came through loud and clear: <em>Stand Down. </em>His first thought was to obey, but all the protective instincts in Jason were telling him to do the exact opposite.</p><p>It was like a tearing in his chest as his looked between Bruce, the little demon, and his brothers that he’d shoved behind him.</p><p>He didn’t understand. Why was the little demon even here? Why wasn’t Bruce letting Jason keep the intruder away? Why wasn’t Bruce protecting the pack?</p><p>What was going on?</p><p>“Stop growling, Jason,” Bruce ordered, and it cut off the angry sound in Jason’s throat. He gave the Luciferean one last dirty look, before he forced himself to stand straighter and not look as intimidating.</p><p>The air didn’t lose its angry, aggressive stink, though. The emotions did dampen a bit, but humans couldn't register that.</p><p>Once Jason quieted, Bruce cleared his throat, putting a hand on the small demon’s shoulders. Jason wanted to rip the hand away, and get any form of distance between Bruce and the stranger. He met the small demon's eyes, holding his gaze with pure rage.</p><p>For a second, the Luciferean looked unsure before he fit the smug look on his face again. It was just a flash of real emotion that Jason narrowed his eyes at. There was more behind the demon's shoved forward aggression and confidence, and it gave Jason just the littlest bit of pause.</p><p>For a second, Jason saw an impling.</p><p>Tired, scared, and obviously trying to find a place in a pack. The species designation fell away and became less important, because there was an impling. The fury that had burned so brightly began to temper down and the memories of Willis began to fade away. </p><p>For a second, Jason considered maybe, just maybe, letting the impling prove him wrong.</p><p>“Now, if everyone is willing to listen—” Bruce shot a look at Jason “—I’d like to introduce you to Damian. He’s going to be your new brother. Jason, I want you to accept him as part of the pack.”</p><p>All of Jason’s thoughts slammed to a halt as Bruce said the worst possible thing that Jason could think of.</p><p>The air turned suddenly cold, and he felt the eyes of both of his brothers’ landing on him. Dick was projecting <em>Worry. Okay? a</em>cross the bond, Tim’s side felt like <em>Alarm </em>and <em>Protect? </em>and a frenetic mix of impling emotions.</p><p>“<em>No,</em>” Jason said, the word dripping with every ounce of rejection that he could muster. Which was a lot. He could gather a lot of fury when he wanted to. He felt the cold sting of his anger travel through the pack bond, leeching into everyone else.</p><p>Bruce got a constipated look on his face that Jason would have usually made fun of him for. But right now, he couldn’t look past the dangerous, unknown demon that still hadn’t gotten the fuck out of his home.</p><p>“You don’t have a choice, pleasure slave,” the Luciferean snapped triumphantly and Jason had the intense urge to smack him. “I have permission from the Head of the pack.”</p><p>Jason’s eyes flicked to Bruce, who levelled him with a heavy gaze. He felt the human push some <em>accept </em>through the bond. It was so obvious that Bruce wanted Jason to welcome the kid into the group, and make them all into one big fucking family.</p><p>The kid obviously thought he had won. It was written all over his smug, pretentious face and Jason was going to love crushing it.</p><p>He smirked, letting all his fangs poke through. The Luciferean caught the look and his air of dominance stuttered.</p><p>“Our Head is human,” Jason purred, rolling in the delicious victory. “Which means I make the bonds in this place. I am the Heart of the pack.”</p><p>The Luciferean’s face dawned in realisation and Jason finally saw the deep-seated fear peeking through the cracks in the other demon’s arrogant demeanour. They both knew that the Luciferean hadn't earned his place in the pack, and any chance of Jason accepting him without it had been kicked to the sun. A vicious part of him crowed in delight, licking at the pungent alarm that was now coming from the demon.</p><p>Jason paused, enjoying the feeling for another moment before he brought the metaphorical hammer down. He spoke words that every demon feared to hear, words that could rip a demon in half and tear a heart from a chest. Ones that cut a demon off from one of the most important connections they would ever make and locked a demon into isolation from the group. It was a terrible thing to do, but it would keep Jason's pack safe from the poison of the Luciferean.</p><p>It would safeguard the small bit of peace that Jason had fought to regain for himself. </p><p>“As the Heart of the Pack, I reject you," Jason said, his voice carrying the weight of the words forward. The small demon visibly flinched back and, behind him, Tim's emotions were rising in alarm, but he ignored both of them. He would keep the pack safe. "I cast you from our home and cut the bonds from your chest. You are not welcome here and you do not belong here. So, by all the Circles of Hell, <em>Leave.</em>”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Jason and Damian: *circling each other and hissing like cats*<br/>Bruce: This is fine.</p><p> </p><p>I'm projecting this story to be about three chapters, but we will see how it grows. Thank you all for the support and the enthusiasm behind this little AU! I'm glad you all enjoy it as much as I do. </p><p>You can visit my tumblr at <a href="https://salparadiselost.tumblr.com"> SalParadiseLost </a> where I post tumblr things and general writing musings.</p><p>Please leave a kudos and comment! Flattery gets you everywhere.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>With satisfaction still on Jason’s tongue, he swivelled around and began to stride out of the room. He didn’t look back at Bruce’s stony face or acknowledge the <em>hurt</em> and <em>shock </em>that was coming from his pack leader. It pained him to have his Head so obviously angry at him, but his desperate need to keep his packmates safe roared over that.</p><p>This was <em>his </em>pack. He had just got it back. He wasn’t going to let anything tear it apart, especially not some little demon that smelled so much like Willis it put him on edge.</p><p>“Tim,” he snapped, his voice still having the edge of a growl. The younger demon had been staring at the Luciferean and startled when his name was called. He looked to Jason with wide and uneasy eyes.</p><p>“Come,” Jason commanded, leaking authority into the word. Tim nearly tripped over his feet scrambling to Jason’s side, and gave him a tiny impling whine from the back of his throat.</p><p>The kid’s bond was a mess. It kept ping-ponging emotions all over the place as Tim tried to ride the now-tumultuous pack dynamics. He obviously didn’t know what was happening or how to react to any of it. The impling was unconsciously reaching out to Jason, tugging at their bond and seeking the comfort of it.</p><p>It tore at Jason’s heart, and made him want to bundle the kid up. He needed to get the kid away, put him somewhere safe and keep him far from the Luciferean.</p><p>He nudged Tim forward, winding them deeper into the Manor and its comforting halls. He remembered when this place seemed like such a maze to him, its halls intimidating in their sheer breadth. He had never been in a place so huge, and a smaller him had been worried it might swallow him whole. But now it was as familiar as the back of his hand, and he was grateful that the size of the Manor allowed him to put a fair bit of distance between the impling and the intruder.</p><p>Eventually, he found the place he was looking for, a smaller study that Jason had turned into his own personal library.</p><p>As he stepped into it and the smell of old books, hearty fire and the blanket comfort of home filled him. It seemed to welcome him and settled the anxiety inside his bones. This room was the most undoubtably <em>his, </em>and his scent was all over it. It was one of the safest places he could imagine, and far away from the intruder in the front hall.</p><p>“Sit there,” Jason told Tim, directing him to one of the red, well-loved couches.</p><p>For a second, the impling hesitated, before finally complying with a grumble.</p><p>“I’m not a baby, Jason,” he mumbled testily, even though his body language was docile. Normally, baby bird would probably put up more of a fight than that, but the stress clearly rolling through Jason was making Tim be better behaved. He kept glancing to Jason nervously, silently taking his cues from the older demon. Tim perched gingerly on the edge of the couch. He looked like a bird about to take flight at the smallest startle and it made Jason’s heart ache.</p><p>“Still an impling to me,” Jason snarked back, the familiar rhythm of their bickering, easing some of the tension away. He lit the fireplace, coaxing the welcome flame into a comforting crackle. He gathered blankets and dumped them on top of Tim without warning. The impling squawked, struggling in the cloth and Jason chuckled because of it. The older demon climbed on to the couch, tugging him until they were both laying down.</p><p>The smaller demon was tense, an anxious line against Jason’s body, before the impling slowly relaxed. The bond between them hummed, and Jason smiled when Tim attempted at a purr. It was still a pathetic sound, but he had been getting better at it.</p><p>Jason rumbled, relishing the safety of the room and putting the Luciferean out of his mind. Hopefully, Bruce had gotten rid of him by now and Jason wouldn’t have to think of him again.</p><p>“What’s happening, Jason?” Tim asked, his voice thin and breakable. “Everything just feels…” he trailed off searching for the words.</p><p>“Tangled?” Jason offered, and Tim nodded.</p><p>Jason sighed, wishing that Tim didn’t need to feel this so early in his demonhood education. Pack in-fighting was pretty common, every group faced it eventually, but usually not at this scale and not when the pack was still settling. “That’s pack drama. It makes all the bonds feel messy and less secure than they actually are.”</p><p>Tim was silent for a moment before speaking again. “Will the bonds fade away?”</p><p>And wow, wasn’t that a knife to the chest. The impling was looking at him with wide, watery eyes, insecurity so clearly written in his face. Tim knew lonliness too well. He was so familiar with living without bonds that he thought the hollow pain that came with it was natural.</p><p>“No, definitely not, baby bird,” Jason assured, hoping to ease away some of the resignation in Tim’s tone. “Our bonds are stronger than that. Bruce would never let them go so easily. He hoards bonds like he hoards plucky orphans. He won’t let yours dissolve, he didn’t even let mine go and I had <em>died</em>. It would take more than a half-pint Luciferean to break our pack up.”</p><p>Jason didn’t tell Tim how much he doubted his own words, though.</p><p>Maybe, when he was younger, he would have said them without the lie. But that was back when he still believed Robin was magic, and he hadn’t had his world split apart between crowbar swings. His faith in Bruce was like a shadow now, there and not, flickering between states. Sometimes, he still saw his father. Sometimes, all he saw was the betrayal that left him behind. It wasn’t easy to allow himself to trust again, and more often than not Jason had the urge to just run away from it all.</p><p>Hell, if he was honest, the only thing that kept him here was the fact that Bruce hadn’t dissolved their bond away when he died. It would have been so easy for a human, to close the open wound of a severed bond and let its pain diminish with it. Severed bonds were excruciating, a living disease based upon grief, and the fact that Bruce kept them… that he never gave up on Jason…</p><p>And the bond made it so clear exactly how much Bruce loved Jason.</p><p>It warmed his heart, but also made it feel like he was drowning every time he thought about it too much.</p><p>“I thought you’d be here,” Dick said, stepping into the room. His older brother was lit with the orange glow of the fireplace and he truly looked like a golden boy.</p><p>Jason watched him enter with narrowed eyes. His hackles rose, and his muscles tensed. The stranger being here was fraying his nerves, and he even doubted whether Dick was safe. (He thought Bruce was safe, and yet Bruce brought the <em>Luciferean</em> here). He was getting anxious with Dick in the room, something he wouldn’t have done only an hour ago. Beside him, Tim’s nerves also jumped, immediately sensing Jason’s concern and meeting him. The impling whined, not sure why Jason was suddenly considering their older brother as a possible threat.  </p><p>Jason’s worries, though, relaxed when he saw Dick purposefully kept himself calm and unthreatening. He put distance between him and the two demons, making sure to keep his hands in view. He even tilted his body to Jason, open and nonhostile, baring his vulnerable neck. The human gently sent <em>safe </em>across the bond with Jason but didn’t push further. He was asking for permission, and it was enough to make the demon lose that traitorous bubble of anxiety.</p><p><em>Pack. Safe. </em>His instincts murmured, delighting in Dick’s near-perfect show of non-aggression.</p><p>Jason nodded, and let Dick come to the couch. He waited again right beside it, before Jason huffed.</p><p>“Come here, big bird, I know that not being part of the cuddles is killing you.”</p><p>Dick chuckled, the sound rich and familiar. “I can’t deny that.”</p><p>His older brother slowly folded his body on to the couch, placing himself so that he could guide Jason’s head on to his lap.</p><p>“How are you?” Dick asked, petting down the white stripe in Jason’s hair, smoothing it out. Tim nestled closer to both of them and sighed in relief as he began to silently feed off of Dick’s comforting emotions.</p><p>“Fucking mad,” Jason said, a little bit of a snarl. “What the fuck was Bruce thinking?”</p><p>Dick hummed, his hand not pausing its ministrations. “I don’t know. He probably wasn’t thinking. Bruce can be an idiot like that.”</p><p>There was a cold edge to Dick’s voice, and when Jason looked up, he saw Dick staring in the direction of the front hall, eyes sharp and dangerous. A small chill passed through his spine, and he was glad not to have Dick’s ire directed to him.</p><p>“Dick?”</p><p>“He let him call you guys ‘sex toys’, Little Wing, and he didn’t say anything about it,” Dick growled, his jaw tensing and becoming a hard line. Jason could almost believe that Dick was a demon with how dark his voice sounded.</p><p>Jason shrugged, looking off to the side. They were slurs that he had heard before, and it wasn’t exactly rare to think that all succubi and incubi were just sex demons looking for their next hit. Hell, most people didn’t even acknowledge that they could feed on emotions that weren’t sexual and completely ignored every other part of their biology. When most people looked at him it was with lust or disgust or just the firm belief that he wasn’t capable of thinking of anything but sex.</p><p>He couldn’t count how many times he’s been called a “slut” or a “sex slave” or just heard his species name hissed like he was something dirty. He was pretty desensitised to that to be honest (<strike>It still hurt every time).</strike></p><p>Dick had never saw him like that. He hadn’t ever made Jason think he was dirty or dumb or that his species made him something lesser. Even when their relationship was at its worst, Dick had <em>never </em>used his species against him.</p><p>And despite having done it many times before, hearing Dick defend him lit something warm in his heart.</p><p>Then, suddenly, there were heavy steps and the door to the library opened, revealing a furious looking Bruce. All of the instincts in Jason slammed into hyperdrive and flared into a raging fire. He pushed Tim against the back of the couch and edged himself more in front of Dick, physically making a barrier between his brothers and their father.</p><p>His eyes flickered over the man, searching to make sure he wasn’t bringing the intruder with him. The man was thankfully alone, although he didn’t look happy for it.</p><p>Bruce opened his mouth to speak, but Jason cut him off before he could.</p><p>“Did you send him away?”</p><p>Behind him, Tim clutched his t-shirt. The impling emotions he was giving off were pure distress and confusion. God, hearing his pack Head and pack Heart fighting was probably killing him. He was going to have to so some major damage control after all this was done.</p><p>“He’s in a guest room,” Bruce said gruffly, walking into the room and standing in front of the couch. The fire back lit him, edging his figure in flame. His huge body seemed even more hulking in that moment, and, even though, Jason was nearly the same size as Bruce, he felt incredibly small. “Jason, I’m very disappointed in you.”</p><p>He flinched like he had been struck and refuse to acknowledge the burn of betrayal caught in his ribcage. His anger was bubbling in him. His instincts were screaming at him to <em>protect </em>and he was tired of Bruce acting like it was wrong.</p><p>“Why?” Jason asked and the question had a steel edge to it. “I was protecting my pack.”</p><p>Bruce frowned more, <em>disapproval </em>stinging through the bond.</p><p>The sheer clash of his Head’s <em>disapproval</em> and his instincts pushing to <em>protect</em> was like whiplash in his mind. The pack bonds that were usually so direct and clear, were a muddled jumble. The state of them almost hurt physically and he hated feeling them be so tenuous.</p><p>Did Bruce feel it? Did the human even care? Was Bruce doing all this on purpose?</p><p>He wouldn’t. Jason trusted him too much. Bruce said that he loved him. Jason <em>felt </em>that he loved him.</p><p><em>But he was just a human, </em>a traitorous part of his mind hissed, <em>he doesn’t feel the same way you do.</em></p><p>That was the danger of bonding with humans. Bonds were intrinsic to demons, but they were only an accessory when made with humans. Demons felt the bonds so much more than them, and what should be a blessing could quickly be turned into a weapon against them. A thing to be held over their head and manipulated into something painful.</p><p>But Bruce would never do that to him and Tim…</p><p>He also hadn’t believed Bruce would ever bring a stranger into the pack without any warning.</p><p>“Damian is part of the pack,” Bruce stated, crossing his arms over his chest and looking as immovable as a mountain.</p><p>Jason snorted and it was an ugly sound. He felt Dick’s hand rub up and down his back. “You wish, old man. I make the pack bonds. He isn’t part of the pack until I say, and I say no.”</p><p>“And why not?” Bruce demanded, taking another step forward. Memories of Willis, who stood over him in the same way before his fists came down, flashed like lightning behind his eyes.</p><p>He wanted to run and hide, but he couldn’t leave Tim and Dick. His own <em>fear </em>and <em>desperation </em>were bitter on his tongue. Tim was whimpering into his back and he didn’t know how to stop it. His breath was coming way too fast, and he couldn’t see past the hulking figure looming over him.</p><p>“Back off, Bruce.” Dick launched himself from the couch, putting himself bodily between the demons and their pack Head. His body was a tight line of violence and he looked like he was second away from throwing a punch. That scary tone in his voice had grown into something strong and bone-chilling.</p><p>Part of Jason whined at Dick being further away, but another stronger feeling was grateful that someone else was stepping up and protecting him for once.</p><p>“Get out of the way, Dick.”</p><p>“I’m not doing that. I’m not letting you scare them because of your inability to look past yourself for ten-fucking-minutes.” Dick snarled, unwavering in his stance. “Now, sit down, before you send Jason and Tim into full-blown panic attacks.”</p><p>Finally, <em>finally</em>, their Head took a step back. He took one, then another, then more until he nearly collapsed on to the couch across from theirs.</p><p>He met Jason’s eyes with a haunted look like he was watching something precious shatter before him. “Jaylad, I will never, ever hurt you.”</p><p>Dick snorted, crossing his arms over his chest and balancing his weight evenly between his two feet. “Yeah, and you do a great job proving that when you’re standing over him and yelling.”</p><p>“I…” Bruce scrambled for words, his lost eyes didn’t leave Jason’s “I never meant to scare you.”</p><p>Tentatively, Jason poked at the bond between them, fishing for the emotions Bruce was feeling.</p><p>The heavy blanket of <em>regret </em>instantly hit him, filling his lungs like thick humidity, and under it was Bruce’s ever-present <em>love, </em>but also <em>fear. </em>But not regular fear, it was something sadder, something more haunted.</p><p><em>Feeling of losing me</em>, Jason realised with a start and he mentally backed away from the bond. It was all so much, all too much.</p><p>Next to him, Tim shifted, pressing himself into Jason’s side, literally grounding him there. “It’s okay, Jason,” he whispered, calm and level, “It’s just Bruce.”</p><p>And that was the problem wasn’t it.</p><p>It was Bruce who was the man he wanted so badly to trust, and yet, had so easily shattered the sense of security he had begun to develop.</p><p>“I know,” he sighed finally, lifting his head to look at Bruce again. The man looked even more wrecked. It both pleased and hurt Jason to see him like this.</p><p>“The Luciferean,” he started, keeping any emotion out of his voice, “who is he?”</p><p>“My son. I didn’t know until his mother told me a couple weeks ago and demanded that I come to pick him up. He was raised in the League of Assassins and to be its heir.”</p><p>All three of the boys stiffened at hearing the League mentioned.</p><p>“Wait,” Dick said with narrowed eyes, “Does that mean…”</p><p>Bruce was already nodding. “His Mother is Talia Al Ghul.”</p><p>Talia Al Ghul. Probably one of the most dangerous, if not the most dangerous, demons in the world.</p><p>“Oh no fucking way,” Jason hissed, his instincts screeching again. The Luciferean was even more dangerous than he had imagined in the first place. Hell, if the kid knew how to use his powers correctly, he could kill every single one of them. “Get him out.”</p><p>“I can’t, Jason,” Bruce snapped, the sound wasn’t angry, just helpless and frustrated. “He doesn’t have anywhere else to go. His mother cut his bonds and didn’t look back. Anyways there’s no way I would throw him back into that cult. He’s my son.”</p><p>“So am I,” Jason snarled, unwilling to let the <em>betrayal</em> show on his face. He knew that the humans felt it, though. The reek of it was thick in the air, so pungent that even they could pick up on it.</p><p>Neither of them spoke, until eventually Jason sighed.</p><p>“Keep him in the East Wing, but I don’t want to see him anywhere in the West. If I see him, I’ll attack. And if I attack, I’ll kill him.”</p><p>Bruce opened his mouth to protest, but Jason cut him off. “I’m telling you that as a warning and a promise. Most demons would have already killed him for his insolence and the threat he represents. I’m giving you a mercy and it isn’t up for debate.” Jason flashed his fangs and sharpened his eyes, letting a bit of his demonic nature creep in.</p><p>It usually would have been enough to send a human running, but Bruce remained still.</p><p>“Alright,” Bruce agreed, though he didn’t like the sound of it. “But, please, Jason, give him a chance.”</p><p>Jason hummed, even though he wanted to scream ‘no’. “Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. Depends if I get over how he called me a ‘sex toy’.”</p><p>Bruce flinched and looked to the side sheepishly. “He shouldn’t have done that.”</p><p>“And you should have stopped him,” Dick said.</p><p>“I should have stopped him,” Bruce agreed, full of regret. It was enough to make Jason want to choke. “God, I’m sorry. I just want him to be part of the pack and I—”</p><p>“I decide who is part of the pack,” Jason hissed, fury raging back into his voice like an inferno. It was loud enough and sudden enough to make everyone in the room startle. “You are my Head, but you do not make the decision of who I let into the pack for me. And if you <em>ever </em>try to demand that from me again, I will take your status away so fast that you’ll get whiplash.”</p><p>“Never Jay,” Bruce assured solemnly, “I won’t do that again.”</p><p>Jason didn’t answer, he just glared at B, putting all his seriousness into a single gaze. Then, in a fluid movement he stood.</p><p>“The East Wing, Bruce. Keep him on the East Wing or else.”</p><p>“Alright,” his Head said, and Jason turned around. He heard a shuffle and Tim was at his side pressing close to him. The impling gave a stuttery purr and Jason ruffled his hair.</p><p>Jason was about to lead the impling out but paused to look back at Bruce.</p><p>The man was still sitting on the couch, staring at the ground with pure misery and regret written into his hunched shoulders.</p><p><em>Good. </em>A vicious part of Jason said, hissing in delight.</p><p>But another, more delicate part, just made him feel exhausted.</p><p>This was his pack. It wasn’t perfect, but it was his and he hated feeling it in such disarray. The bonds were in tangles and though he didn’t doubt their presence, they itched uncomfortably under his skin. His instincts wanted him to smooth them out, but that would take both acquiescing his Head’s demands and protecting the pack. The two urges were in conflict with each other, and they clashed painfully in Jason’s head.</p><p>It was a problem he couldn’t solve now, but he could make it a little better and ease away some of the rough parts. Gently, he touched his bond with Bruce, tugging it enough for the human to notice. The man looked up, a mix of trepidation and hope in the air around him.</p><p>Then, before he could come to his senses, he pushed a little bit of <em>Love. Security. Pack. </em>through the bond.</p><p>Bruce startled, blinking like he couldn’t believe it. He lifted his head, probably to say something, but Jason turned around before he could.</p><p>He put his back to the Head of his pack, ushering Tim towards the West Wing and away from the stranger.</p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>The next few days weren’t good.</p><p>Bruce realised now that he had been way too optimistic in thinking that Damian’s introduction into the pack would be smooth. Way, way too optimistic. So optimistic that he hadn’t even recognised the wrecking ball he had taken to his own family.</p><p>The Manor was tense all the time now, like it was a bomb just waiting to be set off. It had lost the feeling of home and constantly seemed to be teetering into becoming a warzone. He walked its halls, and he feared that one day he would turn a corner and find his two sons tearing at each other’s throats.</p><p>Just as Jason had said, he and Tim kept to the West Wing of the Manor, where both their bedrooms and the kitchen was located. Jason tried to keep Dick there as well, but his oldest son would occasionally wander to the East Wing to spend some time with Bruce.</p><p>He didn’t stay long, though, and he didn’t go anywhere near Damian. When Bruce asked why, Dick told him he didn’t want the little demon’s scent on him, concerned it might set Jason off.</p><p>Which was… logical, as much as Bruce hated to admit it. Every time Jason was in the same room as him now, he got this scrunched, disgusted look on his face.</p><p> But it wasn’t like he could leave Damian sitting in a room by himself. The little demon was hardly speaking and only kept running through endless exercise routines in empty guest rooms. He depended on Bruce for everything, and even though Damian fought not to show it, Bruce could tell he got anxious when he wasn’t there.</p><p>It was so obvious that the kid was miserable and isolated. He needed more. He needed a pack. And Bruce couldn’t give him that without Jason’s approval.</p><p>“I just… I don’t know how to fix this.” Bruce sighed, massaging the developing headache between his eyebrows. He sat slumped over the kitchen island in one of the rare trips he made to the West Wing.</p><p>Beyond him, he heard Alfred bustling about the kitchen. The man took the kettle off the stove and placed a saucer in front of him with a clink. Alfred filled Bruce’s cup before filling his own and sitting next to Bruce at the island.</p><p>“Forgive me for putting in my perspective,” Alfred said so drily that Bruce knew he had said something wrong.</p><p>Which was just another thing he had apparently messed up today.</p><p>“Although, I don’t consider Master Jason’s behaviour right, per se, I do believe it was understandable given the situation.”</p><p>Bruce frowned, glancing at Alfred. The other man peaceably sipped at his tea before continuing without prompting.</p><p>“Master Jason and Master Tim are Incubi, which I know that both of us know”— Alfred shot him a sharp, biting look— “is the most highly social and emotionally responsive species of demon because of their inherent ability to feed off of feelings. They value pack bonds above all else and form deep connections with the people they give the honour of calling packmates. To them, the status of packmate is something someone must <em>earn.</em>”</p><p>He set his cup down with a clink.</p><p>“Master Damian, is a Luciferean, a different species of demon. Although, I have never had the pleasure of meeting one, everything I read about them tells me that they don’t have the best reputation even among demonkind. They are often portrayed as power-hungry and violent, although species does not strictly define an individual. They are also well-known to be the species of demon that’s most highly reliant on the hierarchy within pack bonds. They are demons attracted to power, and, because of that, they are very sensitive when that power is taken from them or when they are in a situation where they do not understand the hierarchy.</p><p> “Now, what you did Master Bruce,” Alfred met his eyes and it made the man hunch smaller in his seat, “was essentially throw a match into a powder keg.”</p><p>Alfred kept talking slowly like he was explaining something to a small child. “Master Jason is working to reform our pack and is especially sensitive to the strength of the bonds. This is only amplified by Master Timothy’s new knowledge of his demonhood, which Master Jason is zealously protective of.  In short, Master Jason sees our pack in a potentially delicate state of flux. Crashing in with a stranger and demanding that he be part of the pack, was most certainly the wrong way to go about this.</p><p>“I don’t think there was any way Master Jason was going to take this as anything but hostile, but you could have at least warned the boy. Perhaps, set up a meeting where he and Master Damian could have had introductions on neutral ground, instead of right in the pack’s supposedly safe home.”</p><p>Alfred finished his speech and let the words sink into Bruce. Almost every one of them was more proof to just how badly Bruce had messed up. Why hadn’t he considered any of this? Why hadn’t he thought of the possibility of Jason seeing Damian as a threat instead of as a potential brother?</p><p>He had just wanted them to be together and banish that sad, lonely look that Damian got when he didn’t think anyone was watching.</p><p>Had his hope really made him that blind?</p><p>“What do I do, Alfred?”</p><p>“Perhaps, you don’t ask an old man to solve your problem?” Alfred said with a sardonic raise of the eyebrow. There were a humour and a warmth in the familiar tease.</p><p>“I’ll stop when you stop being so good at giving advice,” Bruce said through a smile.</p><p>Alfred paused, thinking for a second and sipping at his tea, before answering slowly. “I think, Master Bruce, the answer may be as simple as talking with your son.”</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>“Master Jason isn’t heartless. Present Master Damian as the lonely impling he is, and I think you will be able to soften him.”</p><p>Bruce was silent for a beat. “Is it that easy?”</p><p>The butler gave a surprised scoff. “I said nothing about this being easy. Especially for you, Master Bruce, who can’t seem to master the very basics of talking with his children. I mean, by God, you tried to bring an entire child home as a surprise. “</p><p>“Okay, I get it.”</p><p>“Next time, I suggest a keychain as a more appropriate souvenir.”</p><p>“I <em>get </em>it,” Bruce said, letting the conversation descend into a comfortable silence. It more peace than Bruce had felt in every day of the last week combined. “What if I mess this up, Alfred?”</p><p>“You won’t,” Alfred assured, and Bruce wished he had the same confidence. “Your connection to your sons is strong and they want to be a pack, just as much as you do. They need guidance, though, and a reassurance that a new member won’t break them apart.”</p><p>Bruce was quiet again, before standing up to take his teacup to the sink and wash it out. Alfred refilled his and continued to sip.</p><p>“There’s no time like the present,” Bruce joked, looking in the direction he knew the boys to be in. This morning Timothy had mentioned that Jason would be spending the day teaching him ‘demon things’ and had dragged Dick along with them to be their token human. He hoped it wouldn’t be too much of an intrusion if he talked with Jason alone for a bit.</p><p>“No, there isn’t,” said Alfred, giving Bruce an approving look. “Just be gentle, Master Bruce, and listen to him when he speaks. He is not malicious. He’s hurt and doesn’t know what to do about it. He needs his father, not a commander.”</p><p>With that, Bruce stepped into the halls of the Manor, listening for the familiar bounce of his children's voices. He walked forward and he hoped that he could be what his sons needed him to be.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Computer: 'impling'? do you mean 'implying'?<br/>Me: No. And stop trying to correct my made-up words.</p><p>---</p><p>Thank you all for reading and giving this au an enthusiastic response! I've really enjoyed writing it and I'm glad other people like it too! This chapter is a bit softer and doesn't include Damian being a little shit, but trust me, he's coming back next chapter. </p><p>I hope you liked it and Happy Valentine's Day!! &lt;3</p><p>You can visit my tumblr at <a href="https://salparadiselost.tumblr.com"> SalParadiseLost </a> where I post tumblr things and general writing musings.</p><p>Please leave a kudos and comment! Flattery gets you everywhere.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tim huffed in frustration, dropping his hands in his lap. He grabbed the fabric of his pants until his knuckles were white. He felt Jason’s heavy gaze on him and he looked dejectedly to the side. “I can’t do it.”</p><p>Jason ruffled his hair, ignoring the way that Tim gave a little puppy growl. “Yes, you can. All incubi can.”</p><p>Across from them, Dick was stretched out on a couch, languid like a cat. The human was mostly there as a willing prop and had seemingly fallen asleep because of it.</p><p>“Go over it with me again. Start from the top.”</p><p>Tim met his eyes, pleading to get let go from his lessons, but Jason knew they weren’t anywhere near the end.</p><p>“Fine,” Tim muttered, looking at the dozing human again. “He’s content, a little bored, pretending to be more tired than he actually is, he’s actually super focused on us.”</p><p>Jason tasted the air, picking up on all the same emotions. Tim was right, though he didn’t find the most subtle emotions on the human, the ones that Jason could barely make out himself. That was fine, though, he hadn’t expected Tim to be able to go that deep yet.</p><p>“Good, now the bond.”</p><p>This is where Tim began to frown. He narrowed his eyes, almost like he was trying to burn a hole in the human with his gaze. “I can feel it.”</p><p>“Tug it,” Jason commanded, watching Dick’s reaction. He saw the moment when the human’s eyes popped open like he had been electrocuted. He gasped, hand going protectively to his heart and he struggled to catch his breath.</p><p>“Woah, Timbit, he said ‘tug’, not try to yank it out of my chest.”</p><p>Tim yelped and immediately began worrying. “Oh my god, Dick, I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?” He darted to the couch, hands flying and not knowing where to land. The kid flustered, looking like a baby bird with all his feathers ruffled.</p><p>Dick chuckled, looking up at his frantic little brother who was leaning over him. “I’m fine. You just gave me a little jolt.”</p><p>“Are you sure?” Tim worried still, and Dick smiled affectionately. Damn Big Bird looked like his heart was going to burst.</p><p>“I’m sure.”</p><p>Jason rolled his eyes, because now the air was filled with sickly-sweet Dick <em>devotion</em>.</p><p>“Alright, heartbreaker, get back over here. We’re not done yet.”</p><p>“But what if I hurt Dick?”</p><p>“You’re not going to hurt Dick. Even I’m not sure I could hurt Dick.”</p><p>Jason could.</p><p>He didn’t doubt for a second that he could hurt Dick, but he wasn’t going to tell Tim that right now.</p><p>Tim hesitated but went back to sit by Jason again. The older demon hummed and sent some <em>reassurance </em>through their own bond, urging the impling on.</p><p>“Tug gently,” he instructed and watched as Tim did it. Dick gave a thumbs up from the couch when Tim completely his task successfully.</p><p>“Good, now strengthen the bond. Feel yourself grasping it. Put your own emotions into it. Urge it into something more solid.”</p><p>Tim was biting it inside of his cheek, obviously putting all his effort into this. He closed his eyes, and his pure <em>determination</em> filled the room. Jason’s eyes flickered to Dick, who raised his hand in a thumbs up again.</p><p>“Good, that’s good, baby bird,” Jason assured, and he happily saw Tim brighten a bit. “Now, weaken the bond.”</p><p>“But what if I break it? Or make it fade away?”</p><p>“You won’t, Timberly. You gotta put some trust in it and yourself. Think of your relationship with Dick. It’s not weak, right? It’s strong, much stronger than your poking and prodding.”</p><p>Tim didn’t look like quite believed Jason, but he closed his eyes again. Dick stared at the ceiling, tilting his head from side to side until he met Jason’s gaze and shook his head ‘no’.</p><p>Which meant Tim didn’t have a good enough grasp on the bond to strengthen and weaken it on command. Jason suppressed a sigh, knowing that Tim would only interpret it as disappointment.</p><p>He wasn’t frustrated at Tim, not at all. He was frustrated at Tim’s abusive parents that didn’t teach him a goddamn bit about being a demon and were so neglectful that they couldn’t bother to give him a hug once in a while. How hadn’t they known? How had they let their own <em>son </em>be so starved and underdeveloped that he struggled with the basics of being a demon?</p><p>Jason couldn’t… Jason couldn’t even imagine…</p><p>And it made him want to punch something.</p><p>“Okay, Tim, that’s enough.”</p><p>The younger demon sighed in relief and opened his eyes again. He blinked a couple of times and shook himself lightly, trying to cast off the phantom emotions that clung to his skin. Jason smiled at the small action. It was obvious that the younger demon wasn’t completely comfortable with emotions yet, but he was learning. Slowly, but surely, he was learning.</p><p>It would help if his pack bonds weren’t in a mess, though.</p><p>Once again, Jason cursed Bruce for bringing the Luciferean here.</p><p>“Jason,” Tim poked him in the ribs. “You’re doing your angry face again.”</p><p>Off to the side, Dick snorted. “Baby Bird, you’ll find that every one of his faces is an angry face.”</p><p>“They are not,” Jason said through a scowl and both of his brothers smirked because he might have just proved their point. “Oh, fuck off.”</p><p>They descended into a silence and Jason looked to the ground. He shuffled his feet, picked at the skin of his hand. Then, there was a dip in the couch next to him and he felt Dick’s familiar presence brush up next to him.</p><p>“What’s bothering you, Little Wing?”</p><p>“I just… I hate this. We were fine. I don’t understand why Bruce had to bring that Luciferean here.”</p><p>Dick hummed and Jason felt the sound through their pressed together shoulders. Tim was against his other side and Jason felt his gaze drilling into him.</p><p>“You keep saying his species,” Tim interjected, “is that important?”</p><p>Jason hesitated, his tongue catching in his mouth. His mind flashed to the only other Luciferean he knew, the one that first taught him how to fear.</p><p>“I knew a Luciferean. It didn’t turn out well,” he said simply, teeth grinding. He prayed that Tim wouldn’t press further, but of course the twerp did.</p><p>Tim’s face scrunched, unhappy with that answer. “How do you know Damian is going to be like that? If you want the pack bonds to be fixed, wouldn’t the quickest way to be to give the kid a chance.”</p><p>Jason’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t like the direction Tim’s reasoning was going. “Impling, I do not want you going into the East Wing.”</p><p>Tim’s chin jutted up in defiance. “And why not?”</p><p>He turned fully to Tim, catching his gaze so that the impling knew how serious he was being. He loved Tim. He really did. He loved Tim’s curiosity and the way that he asked a million questions once he got comfortable with a person. He loved that Tim didn’t hesitate on challenging Jason, which was a far cry from the shy little demon he had brought home from Titans Tower. Steady feedings and constant encouragement from his brothers was doing wonders for him.</p><p>At this moment, though, Jason really wished he would just accept what he said.</p><p><em>“</em>Timothy, I want you to listen to me. Be careful of the Luciferean. They only want power, and they don’t care who they hurt to get it. They aren’t like incubi. They don’t care about emotions. Only power. Only crushing you beneath their heel.”</p><p>Tim’s face cracked and from the corner of his eye, he caught Dick’s expression dipping into sadness. His big brother leaned heavier against him.</p><p>“Did one do that to you, Little Wing?”</p><p>Jason tensed, but refused to think about Willis. He couldn’t. He just couldn’t. He wasn’t going to allow himself to.</p><p>“It was a long time ago.”</p><p>Dick was giving him a look that was way too close to pity, but before he could open his mouth. There was a knock to the door, and it opened to reveal Bruce.</p><p>“Jason?” Bruce’s voice was hesitant, and he looked uncharacteristically awkward.</p><p>“Can we talk?”</p><p>Oh, it was going to be one of <em>those </em>visits.</p><p>He felt both of his brother’s eyes on him and he silently dismissed them with a nod. “Saved by the bat, Timmy. We will finish your demon lessons tomorrow.”</p><p>Tim’s eyes flickered between Jason and Bruce quickly. “Are you sure?”</p><p>“Yeah, I’m sure. I can handle the big, old, Bruce.”</p><p>Dick nodded and pushed Tim forward a little bit. “Sure thing, Jason,” he chirped, forcing his tone to be light. “Just holler if you need us.”</p><p>There was the tiniest bit of edge to Dick’s voice and Jason knew that he wasn’t the only one who heard it. Bruce tensed almost imperceptibly and their Head looked thoroughly chastised.</p><p>Jason would have laughed if he wasn’t getting progressively more uneasy.</p><p>Eventually, though, his brothers left the room and, suddenly, it was just a human and a demon.</p><p>Jason met Bruce’s gaze and smiled with all his demonic fangs. He sharpened his eyes, shifting them into slits, and made them glow eerily. It was a look that had haunted human myths and inspired nightmares across the centuries. “Have you come to make a deal with me, human? Offer me your firstborn?”</p><p>The human watched him for a second, before he snorted, the sound breaking some of the tension in the room. He walked closer to Jason and ruffled the demon’s hair, completely unperturbed by his son’s teeth and glowing eyes. He’d been desensitised to Jason’s posturing years ago, and, for some reason, it made something warm light in Jason’s chest.</p><p> “Trust me. If you want Dick so badly, you can have him. No deals needed. I might even pay you.”</p><p>Jason chuckled, dropping his demonic traits and letting himself ease. This was nice. This was familiar. This was almost enough to take his mind off of the small demon that Bruce had inevitably come to talk with him about.</p><p>“What do you want, Bruce?”</p><p>His Head shifted uneasily and then practically collapsed on the other end of the couch.</p><p>“I want to talk about Damian.”</p><p>“I’m not letting him in the pack.”</p><p>“I’m not asking you to. I just want…” he paused, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling. “I just want your opinion on something.”</p><p>Jason tilted his head. Bruce wasn’t one to ask for his opinion. Bruce gave orders like he was born into the role of pack Head. He was their rock, solid and unshakable, but also incorrigibly stubborn once he decided his mind was made up.  </p><p>“You want <em>my</em> opinion,” Jason said incredulously, “on the Luciferean.”</p><p>“Yes, Jason,” Bruce said like the thought was easy and he didn’t doubt his son for a second, “I trust you.”</p><p>Jason bit the inside of his cheek. This wasn’t how he thought this was going to go. Hearing his Head say he trusted him sent butterflies down into his stomach. He didn’t want to admit how go it felt to hear him say that after the rollercoaster that was their pack dynamics right now.</p><p>“Okay,” was the only word he could manage without his voice cracking.</p><p>Bruce leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. His huge shoulders were slumped forward as if he was literally resting the weight of the world between them. Jason’s eyes caught on the subtle grey at his temples, and he looked suddenly older than he had just a few minutes ago.</p><p>“I don’t know what to do with Damian. All he does is train every hour of the day and wait for me to come back. When I’m there, he doesn’t talk outside of answering direct questions. And even when he does, it’s clipped and guarded.” Bruce ran a hand through his hair. “He also keeps looking at me like he’s expecting something.”</p><p>“Well, that part I can explain at least,” Jason offered, not exactly happy that he was helping the little demon, but he couldn’t find it in himself to deny Bruce’s earnest request.</p><p>“How much do you know about Lucifereans?” Jay asked with a raised eyebrow, Bruce met his eyes helplessly, which made Jason snort.</p><p>“God, how many times are you going to bring home demon children that you have absolutely no idea how to care for?”</p><p>“I didn’t know how to care about Dick either and he’s not a demon.”</p><p>“Oh, Dick’s a demon,” Jay wrinkled his nose, “maybe not in species, but he’s as corrupt as they come.”</p><p>Bruce chuckled and didn’t disagree.</p><p>“You know about Lucifereans, then?” he said, bringing them back to the original conversation.</p><p>Memories of Willis flashed in his head. His eyes that became red with fury, the pure <em>oppression </em>he put through the bond, the way he smiled when Jason cowered.</p><p>“My Pa was one,” Jason admitted finally, “I took after my mother, who was a succubus, and he hated that.”</p><p>The demon stared at the crackling fireplace in the front of the room.</p><p>Red. Red like embers for eyes. Red like the blood split on the dirty apartment floor. Red like the corners of his eyes when he couldn’t bring himself to cry anymore.</p><p>“He hated that his son was a slut just like his mother, but he loved having another person to beat into submission.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, Jason. I should have… I wished I had… I wish you didn’t have to go through it.”</p><p>Jason shrugged. “It was a long time ago and I don’t even have the scars anymore. I got the Lazarus Spa Treatment.”</p><p>Bruce’s eyes flickered to him. “Just because they aren’t on your skin, doesn’t mean they aren’t there. I should have warned you, Jaybird. I brought him here only thinking about him, and I didn’t think about what it could do to you.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jason sighed out. “You should have.”</p><p>The demon’s mind wandered to the small kid that had been hiding behind his father’s legs.  He had been tiny, even tinier than Jason when Bruce brought him home. He was just a kid and yet he was filled with the stress of being brought into a strange house with strange demons.</p><p>And then he had attacked the impling.</p><p>God, that really hadn’t been one of his finer moments.</p><p>“You said his name is Damian?”</p><p>Bruce looked surprised at the innocuous question. “Yes. Damian al Ghul, although his mother stripped him of his name when she broke his bonds.”</p><p>Jason couldn’t help but physically startle. He whipped around to stare at Bruce with disbelief. He half expected the man to reveal it was a joke, but the human’s face remained solemn. “She broke her bonds with him?”</p><p>Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Yes, she said it was necessary if he wanted to join a new pack.”</p><p>“Sure, sure. But she broke <em>her </em>bond with him?”</p><p>The human just nodded, and Jason shook his head. “That’s not right. Mothers don’t break bonds with their implings. It doesn’t matter if they are in different packs. Parents don’t break bonds.”</p><p>“She did,” said Bruce, the man’s face darkening in anger. “She took everything from him and put him in the arms of a stranger. He thought I was going to rename him, Jason, like he was a dog. He thanks me when I give him the littlest bits of acknowledgment.”</p><p>Jason’s mind immediately went to another impling. Another impling who was surprised by basic affection because he had spent his life alone in a mansion and who had thanked Jason when he treated him like deserved love. Another impling who had been pushed aside to live without a pack.</p><p>Jason sighed, knowing what he had to do and already doubting his decision.</p><p>“I’ll go see him,” he said, his voice so quiet that the human almost missed it.</p><p>Bruce’s head shot up quickly. “Really?’</p><p>“Yes, now take me to him before I change my mind,” Jason grumbled, ignoring the smile Bruce was giving him and the feeling of <em>thankfulness </em>that Bruce was letting through the bond.</p><p>The man stood and Jason followed after. Bruce led them through the halls of the Manor, suddenly unfamiliar in the tension and growing scent of the stranger.</p><p>Eventually, Bruce stopped in front of a room and opened the door.</p><p>“Damian, I brought your brother to see you.”</p><p>Jason scrunched his nose at being called a ‘brother’ to a kid that he hardly knew at all, but he didn’t complain. Instead, he fixed his eyes to the crumpled form of the small demon wrapped up in a colourful blanket.</p><p>When Damian caught sight of Jason, instant and pungent <em>fear </em>filled the room. And under the fear, the corroding sting of <em>betrayal. </em></p><p>“Father,” Damian looked between the human and the older demon. “Have I displeased you in some way? I have not broken any of your rules.”</p><p>Bruce got this constipated and hurt look on his face. “No, baby, I’m not angry at you.”</p><p>“Then, why have you brought the sex toy here to kill me?”</p><p>Jason snarled at the slur and his fangs flashed at the Luciferean. Why the hell had he thought he could give the kid a chance?</p><p>The human sighed and gave Damian one of the deeply disappointed looks that he was so good at. “You are not allowed to call your brother a ‘sex toy’. He not a thing and you can’t demean him like that.”</p><p>Instead of looking chastised, though. Damian’s fear deepened and Jason could swear he saw the obnoxious brat begin to tremble.</p><p>Jason narrowed his eyes and then, with a groan, he realised that though Bruce had told him not to call Jason a ‘sex toy’, the human hadn’t said anything about Jason not killing the kid.</p><p>“Relax, squirt, I’m not going to murder you.”</p><p>Damian’s gaze narrowly dangerously on to him and the impling gave him a little puppy growl that was actually adorable. Underneath it though was a true fear, one that Jason was suddenly ashamed to have inspired.</p><p>“Father said that you would hurt me next time you saw me,” the tiny demon looked him up and down, “you’re certainly angry enough for it.”</p><p>“Well maybe if you hadn’t come in <em>my</em> house and <em>my</em> pack and started snarling about how I was a ‘pleasure slave’ then maybe I wouldn’t be so angry.”</p><p>“Boys,” Bruce snapped, and Jason silently obeyed the Head of his pack. He backed off but didn’t stop glaring.</p><p>Damian smirked, the impling’s eyes flashed in mischief. “Being submissive must come easy for you, incubus.”</p><p>“<em>Damian!” </em>Bruce’s voice tipped into true anger and the impling seemed to try to huddle further into his blanket. Jason thought that maybe he could see a couple of Bruce’s hairs grey suddenly.</p><p>“If you haven’t brought him here to kill me, then why have you brought him here?”</p><p>The older demon stepped forward, coming in front of Bruce. He confidently cocked his hip to the side, glaring down at the curled up demon. “<em>He </em>was actually considering giving you a pack bond.”</p><p>“What?” said Bruce and Damian at the same time. Jason smirked standing at his full height and crossing his arms over his chest.</p><p>Behind him, he heard Bruce say his name, but he only had eyes for the snarling impling. The Luciferean looked like a hissing kitten, but his feelings were a whirlwind of <em>surprise </em>and delicate <em>hope. </em></p><p>Tasting the impling’s feeling stirred up his own and gave Jason a mix of conflicting emotions. He still had his need to protect his pack, but now, with this impling right in front of him, his instincts were screaming at him to include him in that protection.</p><p>Damian reminded him too much of himself. A demon who had just had his mother’s bond broken and found himself without a pack. He remembered how hollow it felt to live without bonds, like his own chest was eating him inside out. He remembered how scared he was and how much it felt like he was constantly hunted.</p><p>He remembered how he just needed someone to give him a chance.</p><p>And wouldn’t it be hypocritical of him to deny that chance to someone else?</p><p>“Damian,” Jason said and the little impling perked his head. The kid had huge, impossibly green eyes that were as wide as saucers. Damn, this impling could even rival Timbo in the puppy eyes department.  </p><p>“As the Heart of the pack, I gift you with a pack bond. But I want to make something perfectly clear,” his tone hard as a knife. “I am letting you in at the bottom of the pack. You are the lowest. You are to obey everyone who’s above you. Perhaps, in time, you can impress me and raise your rank, but for now, if you step one toe out of line, I will cut your bond so quick that you won’t even realise what’s happening. Do you understand?”</p><p>The impling shifted uneasily and then nodded. “I understand, my Heart.”</p><p>“Good, because I assure you I will not put my pack in danger, and if you prove yourself to be a danger, you leave.”</p><p>The Luciferean bowed his head, silently accepting it.</p><p>Jason accessed the impling for another second and then, he closed his eyes.</p><p>He focused on his own bonds, familiar and home, before turning his gaze outward. It wasn’t hard to find Damian, the kid’s desire for a connection was so bright that it was like a bonfire. It burned furiously and Jason didn’t know whether that fire was there to warm or destroy yet.</p><p>He wondered if he was making a mistake.</p><p>Bruce’s hand was suddenly on his shoulder. It was heavy and caught somewhere between being reassuring and holding him down.</p><p>But he was in the thick of it now. There wasn’t anywhere to go but forward.</p><p>So, Jason reached.</p><p>***</p><p>It had been three days since the new bond snapped into place and Tim still didn’t believe it.</p><p>Getting the bond had been sudden, like an ember had been placed on top of his heart, until it flickered into a connection as thin as spider silk.</p><p>Tim had hoped that maybe it would change everything. Maybe his house would suddenly go back to being comfortable and welcoming. But it didn’t and the house remained a divided battlefield.</p><p>Jason still wasn’t allowing Tim into the East Wing to visit his new little brother. Every time he asked, he was met with a firm ‘no’ and told once again that it was too dangerous. And when he asked about that, Jason just got this stubborn gleam to his eye that he definitely learned from Bruce.</p><p>Dick had turned out to be his only hope.</p><p>“I’m not saying lie to him,” Tim reiterated again, hands on his hips. “Just make something up that distracts him.”</p><p>His older brother was balanced upside down on the floor, legs waving lazily in the air.</p><p>“That sounds a lot like lying, Timmy.”</p><p>“Come on, you can’t tell me that you’re not a little bit curious about our ‘new baby brother’.” Tim put finger quotes around the words. “And at this rate, Jason won’t let me be in the same room as him until I’m like 30.”</p><p>“Have you ever thought,” Dick went to his forearms, his legs making a perfect split, “that there might be a reason Jason doesn’t want you going over there?”</p><p>“Dick,” Tim whined, it had a little bit of ‘impling’ in it, which was more effective on Jason, but also had some sway on the human. Especially, when he paired it with the puppy dog eyes.</p><p>“Stop,” Dick said, and he shifted his position into a backbend that let him put his feet on his head. He had to hyperextend his neck to look up at Tim. “That’s not working on me.”</p><p>“But Dick,” Tim flopped onto the floor, coming face-to-face with the acrobat. He increased the intensity of the puppy eyes. “I can’t do this without you.”</p><p>Dick glared at him, and then broke, tumbling to the side. “You’re a cruel man, Timothy.”</p><p>“Thank you! You’re my favourite brother.”</p><p>“I better be.” Dick rose to his feet in a smooth motion. “I’m putting my life in jeopardy for you. I’m stepping straight into the line of fire.”</p><p>Tim snorted. “Jason isn’t that angry.”</p><p>“But he will be if he finds out that I’ve helped you break one of his sacred rules.”</p><p>“Then don’t let him find out.”</p><p>Dick rolled his eyes. “You say that like it’s so simple. He was trained by the Bat just as much as the rest of us.”</p><p>“I’m sure you can manage.” Tim popped up and pat his brother’s arm before dancing out of the hug Dick almost captured him in. “See you, Dick. Please distract Jason!”</p><p>He dashed out of the room before his brother could say anything else and slowly began his trek to their new packmate.</p><p> </p><p>Tim stubbornly didn’t think about Jason’s disappointment when he wandered through the halls of the East Wing.</p><p>Ever since they met the kid on that first night, Jason had been treating the little demon like he was the plague and had been snapping at Bruce because of it. Jason was incredibly stubborn, and Tim didn’t think that he would ever loosen his grip on the pack bonds.</p><p>In fact, he feared that maybe the minefield that was his family was here to stay and they would constantly be on edge from now on.</p><p>But apparently not, if the new bond in his chest was anything to go by.</p><p>He poked it curiously, testing its wan strength. It fluttered a little at his prodding, but he wasn’t strong enough or daring enough to push it further.</p><p>Strangely, the bond didn’t have the firework of emotions like his brothers’ had. There was nothing like Dick’s exuberant warmth, so strongly and bubbly that it didn’t matter that he was human, or Jason’s steady assurance. It was just… faint, almost like there were no emotions at all.</p><p>Which was impossible because everyone had emotions, even when they tried to cover them up. Jason had been teaching him that, showing him how to navigate the new flood of emotional awareness he was gaining. Jason said that, eventually, Tim would be able to control and manipulate them too.</p><p>Honestly, Tim wasn’t sure if he’d ever learn how to be a good enough demon for that, but it was nice to have Jason putting in the effort. Even if Tim was convinced that it was wasted on him.</p><p>Tim closed his eyes, trying to remember Jason’s words from earlier and focus on the bonds. It was much harder than with Dick who he had a much stronger connection to, but just barely he could grasp it.</p><p>Now the hard part, the part that still baffled him because some of him still considered himself a human, he <em>tasted </em>the emotions underneath the bond.</p><p>Immediately, they flooded his tongue.</p><p>First was the intense bitter of <em>fear</em>, sharp and biting. Then, almost immediately replacing it, was the hollow and watery <em>loneliness. </em></p><p>Tim knew that taste well and the familiar sense brought him back to an empty manor filled with long halls and the ghost of parents who had promised they’d be home yesterday.</p><p>The kid must feel so alone. He was new to a bond and in a house he wasn’t comfortable in. Bruce was there, yes, but Bruce was… not always the best in these types of situations. Jason was probably acting all growly because he was half-freaked out that the little demon would randomly attack someone.</p><p>The impling needed a friend, someone to ease that loneliness away.</p><p>Tim could be that.</p><p>The demon poked his head through a door, expecting to find another empty room, but was surprised when he saw two green eyes glaring back at him.</p><p>They stared at each other for a few moments, before Tim awkward shifted his weight between his feet.</p><p>“Hello,” he said, feeling immediately lame, but unsure what else to say to his new almost-brother.</p><p>“Hello,” the impling answered primly with more seriousness than he’d ever heard on a little kid. “Why are you here?”</p><p>“Ummm, I wanted to keep you company?” Internally, he berated himself for making the statement sound like a question. At this rate, the kid was going to think he was a socially incompetent idiot.</p><p>When the impling didn’t answer, Tim blurted out. “I can sense your loneliness”</p><p>“Tt,” the kid tsked to the side, “Incubi.” He turned his head back to Tim, accessing him like he was a piece of meat.</p><p>“Surely, that can’t be the only reason you’re here,” he said, tilting his face to the side. “What is your other purpose?”</p><p>Tim nervously shuffled his feet and forced his shoulders down as they began to inch up to his ears. “I just want to meet you. I don’t have any nefarious plans.”</p><p>The kid didn’t speak, but it was obvious that he didn’t believe Tim. He hadn’t lost that edge of anxiety through his body and was still looking at Tim like he could attack at any moment.</p><p>“Where’s the big one?”</p><p>Tim wrinkled his nose. “Who?”</p><p>“The older incubus. The angry one. The one that surely doesn’t want you over here.”</p><p>“Oh, Jason,” Tim admitted and scratched the back of his neck. He gave a tiny forced chuckle. “I sicked Dick on him, so he’s distracted for now.”</p><p>Damian perked, standing up slowly. The movement was smooth and almost predatory. “So, you’re telling me that he’s otherwise indisposed.”</p><p>“I guess so. Dick can be really distracting.”</p><p>“Good.” Damian took another step towards Tim and he smirked. It sent a shiver down Tim’s spine, and suddenly he had the urge to run. The little demon circled him, his green eyes flashing red in the dim room. His anxious instincts were pushing him to flee.</p><p>But the other demon circled him, slowly cutting off his path to the doorway and inching closer and closer to Tim.</p><p>“Damian,” Tim tried to growl the word, but his throat wouldn’t work correctly, and the noise came out more human than demon.</p><p>The Luciferean laughed and the sound wasn’t nice.</p><p>“I owe you a debt, incubus. You’ve given me such a great opportunity.”</p><p>Tim refused to let the kid intimidate him further and stood his ground. He was a Robin after all, and he refused to be pushed around by a scrap of a demon half his size. “And what opportunity is that?”</p><p>“You’ve stripped yourself of your protector, which means there won’t be anyone here to stop me from taking your place in the pack.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Too tired for proper chapter notes, so I'll add them later. </p><p>You can visit my tumblr at <a href="https://salparadiselost.tumblr.com"> SalParadiseLost </a> where I post tumblr things and general writing musings. I also occasionally post cut scenes and snippets there.</p><p>Please let a kudos and comment. Flattery gets you everywhere.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Damian had never been <em>cold </em>until he’d gotten here.</p><p>It hadn’t been cold in the desert, even when the temperature dropped over the dunes because the warmth of his League pack’s power never wavered. His mother’s warmth especially never faltered. She was powerful. She was as bright as an inferno and as uncontrollable as a wildfire. Many burned when they got too close to her, but for him, it was only ever warmth. Her power became his and it was an ember in his chest, a hot steady comfort of knowing that he was secure and protected.</p><p>But now, with all his previous bonds broken and cast away into this dark, lonely place, the only thing he could feel was <em>cold.</em></p><p>The worst part was that there was power here in this new place. He could smell the smoke of it on his father and the other demons that he was supposed to call “brothers”. It trailed after them like flickering ashes into the night sky and made Damian desperate to come closer.</p><p>They were fierce, just like his mother, and they could be his new bonfire. They could finally melt away the frost inside him and make him feel warm once again.</p><p>And yet, he had been pushed aside to deal with the ice in his ribcage all by himself. Even the new bond that the angry incubus had given him was failing to dislodge the frost in his veins. How could it when it was so obvious that the demon wouldn’t protect him or use an ounce of his power to come to Damian’s aid? A bond wasn’t enough when there was no warm power behind it.</p><p>He shivered and tried to wrap himself further into the blanket that his father had let him keep from home. It still smelled like Mother, but the scent was fading.</p><p>Fading and being replaced by the scent of this cold place.</p><p>That was almost enough to make him start crying. Why had Mother sent him here? Why did she give him to this new man? Why couldn’t he just go home?</p><p><em>Wrong. You don’t have a home anymore, </em>he corrected himself and the ice around his heart grew thicker. He whimpered, a pathetic sound but he was the only one in the room.</p><p>How was he going to find warmth now? His father was the most obvious option, he was the only one who didn’t look at him like a feral animal all the time. But it was so clear that his loyalties lay with the angry incubus and he wasn’t going to use his power to protect Damian.</p><p>And if there was no protection, there was no way Damian was going to be able to convert that power to warmth.</p><p>Seeing his father now was just like looking through a glass wall. He could see the possibility of fire, of warmth, of safety, but it was all hopelessly out of reach.</p><p>He hated that warmth was so close, but he was forbidden to touch it. He hated that he had been taken here at all. He hated that he couldn’t do anything to fix this.</p><p>He curled up tighter, feeling like a miserable heap, a corpse without life in its skin. He knew that he should be training and that it would be shameful if his father found him like this, but he couldn’t force his limbs to move.</p><p>It was pathetic. <em>He </em>was pathetic.</p><p>He was <em>cold.</em></p><p>And he didn’t know what to do.</p><p>He thought that maybe he would stay there all day, feeling the ice slosh in his veins and arteries.</p><p>But then the door opened and one of the incubi stuck his head inside and began to bumble around.</p><p>Damian didn’t quite know what to make of him.</p><p>He was a strange creature. He was nearly full grown, but yet he still had that milky impling scent and the protective smell of the angry incubus clinging to him.  He kept twitching unevenly as if he wasn’t comfortable in his own skin and mumbling about ‘being his friend’. The thin bond between them vibrated ever so slightly, and Damian made sure to guard his emotions carefully as Mother had taught him.</p><p>Incubi were tricky like that. Always prying, always seeking out the weakest emotions to twist in their hands. They were natural liars, though deception came easy when you could play upon a person’s greatest hopes and fears. They were usually weak, Mother said that most weren’t good for anything outside of sex, but a well-trained one could be deadly.</p><p>This one seemed harmless enough. He kept talking like an undersocialised imbecile, and yet, there was a tight power curled in his form. It was lit under his skin and betrayed the hidden aptitude that he must have.</p><p>There was fire inside him, and it was so close and bright it nearly blinded Damian.</p><p>He hardly listened until the other demon said something about ‘Jason’ being distracted.</p><p>His emotion flared and he had to zealously guard them behind his mental wall. He looked to the half-impling to see if he noticed and he didn’t twitch.</p><p>In Damian’s mind, an idea sparked and kindled to life.</p><p>The angry demon had given him a bond but on conditions.</p><p>
  <em>Obey who’s above you but impress me and you can move up the ranks. </em>
</p><p>Damian was the lowest, but he didn’t have to be.</p><p>If he could impress the angry, he could gain just a little bit of power, and then maybe, maybe…</p><p> Maybe he could finally have some warmth.</p><p>But the angry demon had also said not to be a danger.</p><p>Which was trickier because that probably meant the angry incubus would be unhappy if Damian maimed the half-impling. He could scare him, though. Scare him and use tactics that wouldn’t endanger the smaller one’s life.</p><p>It could work. He was desperate for it to work.</p><p>He couldn’t help a violent shiver as the cold inside of he seemed to spread out further. It was almost enough to make him cry out, but he couldn’t let the other demon see, so he just tightened his fist underneath his blanket.</p><p>The feeling passed without his face making a twitch.</p><p>Good. His mother would have been proud of him for that.</p><p>He looked up at the other demon and saw that he was still jabbering on. What had his father seen in him? This demon playing at still being an impling. He was weak, unconfident, and endlessly blabbering.</p><p>How had this demon won both the Head and Heart of the pack?</p><p>Damian should be in his position. He was stronger. He was trained by the League. He was a <em>Luciferean</em>, a feared species that had a much more dangerous reputation than incubi. He was Bruce’s blood son.</p><p>Why did none of that make him good enough?</p><p>Why didn’t he deserve any warmth when he was obviously freezing?</p><p>He would do anything if it meant he could have some fire in his chest and this little sex slave had just given him the perfect opportunity to do it.</p><p>“I will not remain at the bottom of the pack,” he hissed, and the sound rang dangerously in the room. The other demon instantly perked up, the muscles tensing in his shoulders. “and I’m going to put you there.”</p><p>Damian struck and the incubus bouncing out of the way to avoid getting a fist to the throat. Unlucky, but Damian shifted his trajectory so he could slam into the demon’s shoulder. The incubi landed in a messy heap and muffled a pained sound that signalled that he had hurt something. Damian tried to strike again, but the other demon twisted away in a perfectly executed evasive manoeuvre. It had a strong grace to the motion and made Damian pause to reassess.   </p><p>“You’ve had training,” Damian remarked, watching as the pleasure demon stood up. He was holding one of his arms close to his chest, signalling that he had hurt something in Damian’s initial attack.</p><p>“A bit,” the other demon said through gritted teeth. “You don’t have to do this Damian.”</p><p>Damian’s hand twisted into fists and he ignored the ice constricting around his heart. The other demon’s warmth was so close and so untouchable for Damian.</p><p>“I have to,” Damian spat. “I need to.”</p><p>The other demon’s face twisted in confusion and something like pity came on to him.</p><p>“You don’t,” the incubus said gently like he was talking to a frightening animal. “We can be your family if you’ll let us.”</p><p>Was this demon mocking him? Coming so close and feeling so warm, only to hold it over his head.</p><p>“I have to. I don’t have a choice.”</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>Damian grit his teeth so hard that it was making his jaw ache. This demon had to be taunting him. Using a fake kind tone to throw him off guard and keep him at the bottom where it was cold. He couldn’t live like this.</p><p>“Because I can’t bear it anymore.” Damian was surprised that he admitted that out loud. The other demon’s fake pity turned into confusion.</p><p>He tilted his head to the side. “Can’t bear what?”</p><p>“You know, you lying whore,” Damian growled, and before the other demon could retaliate, he punched him in the face.</p><p>Despite his training, the other demon didn’t seem to expect the hit. The incubus made a pained cry, clutched his jaw and ducked out of the way of his second hit. Damian tried to kick out his legs, but the damned sex toy executed a one-handed flip despite his hurt wrist and put distance between them.</p><p>“What do you mean? What’s hurting you, Damian?</p><p>“As if you don’t know. As if you and the angry demon aren’t purposefully keeping it from me. I know and you don’t have to lie.”</p><p>“We aren’t lying to you.”</p><p>“Shut up, pleasure slave!” Damian yelled, the ice inside him spiked further into his heart, making it ripple in pain, “Shut your mouth for once in your life, there isn’t anyone to please here.”</p><p>Damian attacked again, pretending to go for the other demon’s right, but then feinted to catch his left. The incubus seemed to be avoiding to attack him, which Damian happily took advantage of.</p><p>When the incubus raised his arms to block, Damian caught his hurt wrist and <em>twisted.</em></p><p>The injured bones shattered in his grip as he viciously forced the incubus to the ground. He screamed in pain, the sound twisting into a whimper. Damian ground a knee into the impling’s back, ignoring the hitch in the demon’s breath.</p><p>“Submit slut,” he hissed, hoping that the demon would just give in. Give in and let him have the warmth back.</p><p>The incubus glowered, struggling under Damian’s hold. “No,” he said, for the first time sounding like a demon instead of a human pretending to be a demon. “I’m not playing into your delusions.”</p><p>Damian snarled, pressing an elbow into a pressure point he knew would cause pain. The incubus yelped and Damian felt the bond between them flare in <em>agony</em>.</p><p>He had to hide his grimace at the instinctual revulsion of feeling a packmate in pain. He couldn’t be weak now, not when he was so close.  “Then, I will force you to submit.”</p><p>Damian bared his fangs and yanked down the hem of the incubus’ t-shirt. It was laughably flimsy, nothing like the traditional high-collars that Luciferean’s wore as protection from this very thing. The back of the incubus’ neck showed, and Damian hesitated.</p><p>Damian was going to bite the demon.</p><p>He was going to put his fangs on the back of his neck and force the other boy to submit to him no matter what. It would hurt. It had hurt Damian so many times and he had hated it every time. It wasn’t the intense pain of the bite, it was the sudden loss of control and inability to move his own limbs.</p><p>It had terrified him to have another demon leering over him and being unable to move a single inch. To only be able to sit there in fear as all of his power was taken away and held over his head.</p><p>He didn’t want to another, but this was the only way. The only way to impress the angry demon. The only way to break the ice encasing his heart and make him feel alive again.</p><p>He fought through the hesitation and bared his fangs. He was about to bring them down on the demon’s exposed neck, when a fierce snarl ripped through the room, freezing the other two demons.</p><p>“What the fuck is going on here?” the angry incubus stood in the doorway, looking like hell’s fury itself had taken a physical form. His eyes glowed, his fangs were bared, and <em>wrath </em>emanated from his body. He looked a second away from tearing Damian apart, and he had to force himself not to cower into the floor.</p><p>Behind him, the human brother peeked over his shoulder with a frown and a barely contained anger.</p><p>Damian stood up to the two, fighting the trembling in his fingers and gulping down the little impling whine that rose in his throat.</p><p>He straightened his spine like Mother had taught him and blocked off all emotions from the bond. He prayed that the incubus wouldn’t tear through his defences and lay his emotions bare like a flayed fish.</p><p>“Heart of the pack,” he started formally, bowing his head in respect, “I have defeated this demon in combat and wish to take his place in the hierarchy. I hope that this gift is impressive enough for you.”</p><p>He heard the human mutter a “what” but ignored it in favour of keeping eye contact with the Heart.</p><p>He had never been this close to the demon, and he suddenly realised how much bigger the incubus was than him. The man was pure muscle and fury, towering over him with tightly controlled power boiling under his skin. He could probably pick Damian up and crack him in half if the incubus really wanted to.</p><p>And the angry demon looked like really wanted to.</p><p>The fear that he had barely been managing to hold back, washed over him like a flood and rushed up his throat like a coming tide.</p><p>The incubus was so big and if he had the same training as the little incubus, then he would be a formidable opponent. He also wouldn’t hold back lack the half-impling obviously had been doing. Damian had League training, he wouldn’t go down easily, but…—sickening feeling sank into his stomach— he would go down.</p><p>And if he went down, he would die.</p><p>“Impressive?” The incubus stalked forward with a dangerous laugh. His eyes glowed hauntingly in the dim room and Damian got the impression of a wild cat languidly hunting him. “What about this do you think is impressive?”</p><p>Damian raised an eyebrow. “I have defeated your favourite in battle. It’s a show of my abilities.”</p><p>“Really?” The incubus questioned again in that cruel tone that made him shiver. “Because all I see is that you hurt my little brother.”</p><p>“I did not inflict any lasting injuries,” Damian protested, forcing his voice to be even.</p><p>“But you hurt him, and I explicitly told you that if you put one fucking toe out of line, I would take care of you myself.”</p><p>Damian’s panic was rising and his League training was barely enough to keep it down.</p><p>Where was Father? Did he want Damian dead also?</p><p>His thoughts were swirling in one jumbled mess in his head.</p><p>Where was Mother? Why did she leave him here? Why did she leave him to die?</p><p>He wanted to cry. He wanted to break down and stop being strong, but weakness meant death, especially when there was a looming demon intent with tearing him limb from limb. He just wanted to go home.</p><p>He couldn’t stop the tears now just like he couldn’t stop the quick panicking breaths that were stuttering in his chest. He tried to back away, but his back slammed into a wall and he realised he was cornered.</p><p>He was trapped and now he was going to die. A frantic impling keen came from his throat and he tried to push himself into a ball. He felt the incubus pull on his fragile bond, ready to rip it out, and he prepared himself for the coming pain because there wasn’t any way to stop it now.</p><p>He had already lost everything and now he’d lose everything again.</p><p>“Jason, stop.” The younger incubus’s voice cut through startling Damian from his rising panic.</p><p>The other demon was standing in front of him, his body between Damian and the angry one’s. A tiny fleck of warmth lit in Damian’s chest and he almost wept.</p><p>The huge incubus snarled. “Get out of the way, Tim.”</p><p>“No,” the demon snarled back, meeting the older’s fury. Damian couldn’t believe the younger, obviously weaker demon was challenging him. Did he realise that he didn’t stand a chance? Especially not when he was already injured?</p><p>The older demon didn’t immediately snap one of the younger’s bones, though, he just stared furiously.</p><p>“Timothy,” he growled, but the younger stood his ground.</p><p>“He’s just a scared little kid, Jason. I’m not letting you hurt a scared, little kid.”</p><p>“But he hurt you,” the incubus argued and the wrath in his voice rolled like thunder.</p><p>“So did you,” Tim snapped back and the older flinched like he had been hit. The anger that had been so bright, snuffed out like a candleflame. “You came into the Tower to kill me, but I forgave you because I knew you were just hurt and lashing out. ”</p><p>The younger demon’s voice became quieter and softer. “He’s hurt, Jason. He just needs someone to notice.”</p><p>The older demon stared for a long time. The glow in his eyes eventually flickered away, leaving a demon that looked more like a man.</p><p>He took a breath and turned around.</p><p>“Dick,” he said and the human that Damian had forgotten about, jumped to the demon.</p><p>He warbled something too low for Damian to hear and the incubus nodded. “Take baby bird and start getting him fixed up. I need to have a talk with the brat.”</p><p>Damian’s heart sunk in his chest when he heard the words and dread weighed heavily in his stomach. The human took one of the half-impling’s hands and gently tugged Damian’s only protector away.</p><p>Instinctively, he wanted to whine as he left, taking the only warmth that Damian had felt in days with him. As he was taken, the ice immediately began to attack him again, sending flashes of pain through his limbs.</p><p>It made him want to cry all over again, but he forced himself to remain still.</p><p>He couldn’t show weakness now.</p><p>Not as he was left alone with the angry incubus,</p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>Jason sighed, rubbing a hand through his hair and the rapidly developing headache. Dick kept shooting worried looks at him and Timmy was obviously not convinced that Jason wasn’t going to explode at the kid.</p><p>He wasn’t. Not anymore.</p><p>Not when Tim had taken his fiery anger and dumped a shitload of guilt all over it.</p><p>Now he just felt sick.</p><p>“Jason,” Dick nudged, his voice all anxious and pleading, but Jason waved it off.</p><p>“Go, Dickie, and bandage the kid’s wing.”</p><p>The human hesitated, eyes flickering between Jason and the Luciferean, but he slowly began to pull Tim out of the room.</p><p>The smaller demon was still glaring, but the look had lost most of its edge. “Don’t hurt him,” he insisted and there was more than a little bit of pleading in the words.</p><p>It stabbed Jason’s heart more than he thought possible.</p><p>“I won’t.”</p><p>Something in the tone of it must have swayed Tim because he finally allowed Dick to pull him out of the room and towards medical attention.</p><p>Just before they left, Dick hesitated one more time with an unhappy tilt to his mouth and in a silent question in his gaze.</p><p>“Go, I’m okay.”</p><p>Dick nodded, and tugged the bond, putting through a little bit of <em>reassurance</em> that had Jason rolling his eyes. Dick, the huge sap, had figured out how to motherhen Jason over the bond and used it at full force. Jason sent back some <em>annoyance </em>tinged with <em>affection </em>that made Dick’s lip quirk.</p><p>The human shuffled out with Tim, both of them murmuring down the hall. Jason waited till their voices faded and the steady strum of their bonds was the only thing that remained.</p><p>All the bonds helped ground him and keep the anger back. It still rolled, angry and bubbling in his stomach, but it didn’t feel like it was going to consume him anymore.</p><p>He took a deep breath and turned back to the tiny demon that had been the source of all his anger.</p><p>Only to find the child half-undressed and on his knees.</p><p>All the air rushed out of his lungs like someone had punched him in the gut. His mind flashed to a stale apartment, a dirty alleyway, feeling so hungry that he shook and he was willing to do anything just to get a bite to eat. The way the gravel had scraped his knees and bit into his skin.</p><p>The tiny demon looked up at him, his tiny, bare chest with its bird-thin bone rising and falling in nervous quickened breaths. Jason didn’t need to taste the air or check the bond to know the kid was terrified.</p><p>Before he could find his voice, the boy swivelled around, breaking the double-image of Jason’s own trauma.</p><p>But seeing his back, somehow made it worse.</p><p>Jason’s eyes travelled over the Luciferean’s, no, Damian’s bared back, and he thought he was going to vomit.</p><p>The skin should be smooth, but instead, it was marred with scars. Some he recognised as claw marks, obviously from another demon. Some were straighter, old marks carved into his skin by either a blade or a whip. And, most hauntingly, was the series of bite scars that disfigured the nape of the kid’s neck.</p><p>Biting was an ancient practice that had gone out of fashion hundreds of years ago and rightly so. It was an extension of scruffing, which all unruly implings experienced, but taken into the gruesome. The act involved both the physical bite and a twisting of a bond between demons, to force their will onto another. It hurt, but worse than that it made a demon unable to fight back or resist. It was considered a torture, a bastardisation of the things that demons held close, and the kid looks like he had been subjected to it many times.</p><p>Jesus, wasn’t this kid like 10, why did he already have so many scars. Who did this to a kid?</p><p>Revulsion rolled in Jason’s stomach and the instinctual part of him told him to <em>protect. </em>If it was any other kid, then he probably already would have. But this wasn’t just any demon. This one had broken his pack’s peace, he had tried to hurt Tim, he had manipulated a pack bond turning it into a perversion of what it should be. </p><p>Other Hearts of the pack would have killed him for that. </p><p>Jason hadn’t made up his mind yet. </p><p>But even as he had the fleeting thought, a deep part of him knew he was never going to do it. </p><p>Damian was still an impling and his species didn’t change that</p><p>He was small, alone and so afraid that he was lashing out to everyone around him. He put on this air of confidence and arrogance, but it didn’t take much for Jason to crack through those emotions and taste the unadulterated sadness rolling under them. </p><p>The pack bond between them, even though it was the thinnest and most delicate it could be, was still something he recognised. </p><p>Jason shifted his weight and came closer to the boy. The small demon flinched before catching himself and straightening his spine. The impling was trying his best to hide the shivers, but Jason could catch the trembling of barely contained fear. The emotions coming off the kid were pure distraught mixed with sour resignation to his fate. </p><p>But Jason knew he wasn’t going to do anything. There was no way. Not with such obvious <em>hurt impling </em>in front of him. </p><p>His eyes travelled through the boy’s scars, past pains he never should have borne, and he got caught on one at the base of Damian’s spine. </p><p>“What happened to your tail?” Jason asked, narrowing on the suspicious scar. It was large and ugly on Damian’s lower back. </p><p>The boy was silent before answering in a voice he was fighting to keep steady. “Mother docked it. It was a point of vulnerability. I had failed my trainings too many times and I lost my privilege to have it.”</p><p>The sickness that had been bubbling through this entire interaction suddenly rose up in his throat and almost made him vomit.</p><p>“Your mother… cut off your own tail?” Jason said in horror. “Don’t you, like, <em>need </em>that?”</p><p>Damian whipped around, giving Jason a little puppy snarl that he was trying to make look intimidating. “I’m not a baby,” he snapped, “and obviously I don’t need it. I learned how to walk correctly again.” Damian’s jaw set and he glared to the side. “It was my own fault. She told me what would happen if I remained a failure and I didn’t succeed in bettering myself.”</p><p>It was like Jason had been punched in the stomach and stabbed in the heart at the same time.</p><p>
  <em>I learned how to walk correctly again.</em>
</p><p>What kind of sick fuck maimed their own child?</p><p>Jason could just imagine the tiny impling, stumbling around, in pain, and trying desperately to find his balance because his own mother had cut one of his fucking limbs off.</p><p>And why? Because the impling didn’t meet whatever twisted sense of standards a murder cult placed on him.</p><p>“But you’re an impling.”</p><p>“It was a weakness, so Mother cut it off,” There was the tiniest bit of wobble in the otherwise strong words. “I need to be able to curb my weaknesses, no matter the pain associated with them. It’s my duty as heir to the al Ghul throne,” the demon growled before he caught himself. “At least, it was. I’m not anymore.”</p><p>“Your mother cut her bond with you,” Jason stated what he already knew, and the little demon nodded miserably.</p><p>Goddammit, how many things was this woman going to cut from a child?</p><p>“She did and she left me with the cold.” The boy shivered violently, trying in vain to curl up on himself.</p><p>The incubus looked around the room that wasn’t chilly at all. Sure, this house could get drafty but it was nothing that Jason would describe as cold. Anyways the way that Damian said the word implied more like there was a meaning that Jason just didn’t know.</p><p>“What’s ‘the cold’?” he asked, and the impling glared at him through one furious, green eye.</p><p>“Don’t pretend you don’t know. The other sex toy already made that play.”</p><p>“<em>Don’t call him that,</em>” Jason snapped, and the smaller demon flinched away again. It sent a spike to hurt through his heart that warred with the fury at hearing his little brother being called a ‘sex toy’.</p><p>“Alright, my Heart,” the little demon acquiesced, bowing his head and baring his neck in a way that made Jason a little ill. Everything about the kid’s behaviour was fucked up and spoke of a life that Jason didn’t want to think about.</p><p>The pieces were all there, Jason just didn’t want to put them together.</p><p>“Now, answer my question, what's the cold’?”</p><p>The demon’s fear instantly washed away to be replaced by irritation. “You really don’t know?”</p><p>“Nope,” Jason popped the ‘p’ and the impling only seemed to get angrier.</p><p>“’ The <em>cold’</em>” the impling stressed again, “is the feeling a Luciferean gets when they don’t  have any power or anyone to protect them. All Lucifereans chase the warmth because without it,” the kid suddenly looked incredibly small and put both arms over his tiny chest, “the cold comes in to freeze our hearts.”</p><p>“So when a Luciferean doesn’t have any power they get chilly?” Jason said incredulously with a raised eyebrow.</p><p>“I would say that it’s more that ‘chilly’” Damian snapped, showing off little puppy fangs again. “It freezes us from the inside out until we can find some power again and I’ve been <em>freezing</em> since you brought me to this damned house.”</p><p>The kid’s voice was raising in frantic frustration. He sniffled in something that sounded like the beginning of a sob and swiped his eyes. His sleeve came back wet.</p><p>Horror sunk into Jason’s chest. He remembered what it felt like to be a demon that didn’t get what he needed. He had felt that hollowness in his own chest and he could just imagine the kid; scared, alone and cornered, lashing out at everyone and grabbing on to any possibility he could. Anything to just feel a little more secure.</p><p>“I don’t understand,” Damian half-yelled, half-whimpered, “why are you doing this to me? I’m trying to follow your rules and I’m trying to impress you, and I still can’t get a little <em>warmth</em>. All you do is attack me and now you’re going to kill me, and I don’t know why!”</p><p>The kid’s voice was completely breaking now, and he buried his face in his blanket with a frustrated yell.</p><p>“Kid, I’m not going to kill you,”</p><p>The demon whipped around like a snake, his tiny face blotchy with pure frustration. “That’s not what you told Father who warned me that if I left this side of the house that you would <em>kill </em>me and I was not allowed to defend myself.”</p><p>Jason sighed, the guilt of his own words ringing back to him weighing on him heavily.</p><p>He had said that and, moreover, he had been ready to follow through with it. When he had first seen the impling, he had been furious. So furious that he had been ready to attack a child. So furious that he <em>wanted </em>to attack a child.</p><p>Tim had been right.</p><p>It was like that night in the Titans Tower playing all over again. Jason, too angry for logic and too vicious for hesitation, becoming his own worst nightmare, and a kid caught in the middle of it to bear the pain of Jason’s failure. He had just been so <em>angry.</em></p><p>Just like Willis.</p><p>Maybe the violent apple didn’t fall from the fuck-up tree.</p><p>It didn’t matter whether the apple was taken to a different orchard and had almost convinced himself that he could be better.</p><p>“Look kid, I’m sorry,” he admitted, looking down at his own hands, “I shouldn’t have said that. I am not going to kill you.”</p><p>Damian’s eyes travelled up and down his body. “Why change your mind? You seemed very sure of it in the moment, and it’s within your right as the Heart of the pack.”</p><p>“Because I’m not someone who hurts little kids,” he snarled, mostly at himself, but the jumpy impling tensed anyways. “What your old pack taught you was fucked up. Pack shouldn’t hurt each other. Pack shouldn’t bite or maim each other. Pack shouldn’t have a messed-up system of hierarchy that forces each other to fight to submission.”</p><p>The kid looked at him with wide, green eyes that stared at him like he was presenting the most novel concept in the world.</p><p>“That’s nonsense. How do you know your place within a pack?” The boy’s tone was harsh, but there was just the slightest bit of wobble at the end of the question. Something about it broke his heart.</p><p>Jason shrugged, forcing nonchalance. “You just learn. We’re a pack, but we’re also a family. There’s not a strict hierarchy. We learn to respect and listen to each other, not fight each other to the death every time there’s a disagreement.”</p><p><em>Most of the time. </em>Jason added mentally, but he didn’t say it out loud. Damian could learn the highs and lows of being in a family a little later on.</p><p>Heartbreakingly, though, the kid kept looking at him like he was speaking another language. This kid… this kid had to know what a family was right? So why did he keep looking at him with that thousand-yard stare?</p><p>“Look, I know our family isn’t normal. Our Head is human and fights crime in an animal suit, my older brother is cuddlier than any human should be, and my little brother doesn’t know a thing about being a demon, but it’s a good one and we protect each other.”</p><p>Damian bit his lip, one of the few signs of anxiety on his otherwise still face. He looked older, than any kid should ever seem, but his emotions were a completely different story.</p><p>The kid was obviously trying to hide them. He was stubbornly trying to keep them fixed behind a mental wall and was pushing forward <em>confidence </em>as a front. It was a good lie, maybe even the kid believed the lies he was telling himself, but no one could truly hide emotions from an incubus.</p><p>(Except maybe Tim, but he was still learning)</p><p>The kid was a whirlwind of <em>fear, anxiety, desolation </em>and underneath all the negative, was a delicate <em>hope.</em></p><p>“How do I know you’re not lying?”</p><p>Jason rolled his eyes, at least this part was easy.</p><p>“Kid, my emotions are all over this place, I’m sure you can feel them. Plus, if I really wanted to hurt you, don’t you think I would have taken the opportunity already?”</p><p>The impling’s glare deepened and he searched Jason’s face for a lie. His eyes hadn’t quite lost that frightened animal franticness to them. A part of him longed to soothe it over, but a part still held him back.</p><p>“If I chose to become part of this ‘family’,” Damian said with the characteristic haughtiness of his species. Jason wondered when he had flipped from finding it grating to finding it cute. “would you protect me also?”</p><p>Jason looked down at the kid and felt his hesitation shattering. This was a kid in front of him. Just barely out of being a baby. An impling with that sweet, young scent clinging to his skin.</p><p>And he so obviously needed someone to care for him, even though he was trying to pretend he was fine on his own.</p><p><em>Desperation </em>and <em>loneliness </em>soured his emotions, giving him away.</p><p>Feelings that could be eased away by a steady pack.</p><p>God, he sounded like Dick. This family was turning him soft.</p><p>He sat down next to the impling, gently rubbing a shoulder against his. The kid was as still as a statue, but Jason felt some of the tension ease out of his emotions from the touch.</p><p>“Yeah, kid, that can include you too,” he said, leaning a little heavier against the impling. The kid just barely leaned back, and it felt like a win.</p><p>Damian tightened and then, all the stress released out of his body with a sigh.</p><p>“Warm,” he mumbled, becoming slowly weightier against Jason’s side.</p><p>“Warm?” Jason questioned, nudging the kid.</p><p>“It’s a Luciferean quality,” he said, “Power becomes warmth. Protection becomes warmth. It’s the fire to our soul. Without it, we just become cold.”</p><p>Jason felt a pang of intense guilt and wondered how much of the kid’s trembling and curling up in the blanket had been fear and how much of it had been cold.</p><p>Jason couldn’t help but press a little bit closer still.</p><p>“Well, don’t worry about that anymore. I’m sure we can fix that.”</p><p>Then, a tiny, delicate “thank you”.</p><p>Jason smiled. He had definitely done something right this time.</p><p>“But no more attacking your brother. The occasional whacks on the head I’ll allow, but no maiming, broken bones or death allowed.” He was only half-joking, but the kid managed a tiny smile anyways.</p><p>“How about the infliction of general distress?”</p><p>“Only if he really deserves it.”</p><p>“I am fine with those terms of…” his voice was slurring and he really seemed about to fall asleep. Jason’s smile widened and he poked the impling.</p><p>“Now let’s find you a bedroom in the West Wing. I’m sure your new older brothers and your emotionally constipated father will be itching to know what happened between us.”</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Things aren't perfect but Damian slowly learns how to be part of the family after this. Jason still gets mad, Tim still puts himself into dangerous situations, Damian still has trouble knowing what is appropriate family behaviour, but they get better and fall into the teasing, batkid dynamic we know and love.<br/>Bruce has never been more relieved in his life. </p><p>Dick also happily makes the discovery that Baby Bat makes a wonderful addition to cuddle piles. He's grumbly, but being protected by pack at all sides turns the kid into a wonderful little heater.</p><p>Damian retaliates by throwing himself into a fireplace before Dick learns Lucifereans are fireproof. </p><p>Bruce woke up to a lot of screaming that day and almost had a heartattack himself. </p><p>Jason, the asshole he is, laughed.</p><p>***</p><p>Thank you all for keeping along with this little story of mine! I've really enjoyed writing it and I hope it came to a satisfying conclusion! I love this series, so I might continue adding one-shots. So follow the series if you want to see more. I've had a wonderful response from readers and you guys were truly the people who fuelled me on.</p><p>Again, thank you to Daisy for inspiring me and putting the nugget of incubus Jason in my head. I couldn’t have done this without you. </p><p>You can visit my tumblr at <a href="https://salparadiselost.tumblr.com"> SalParadiseLost </a> where I post tumblr things and general writing musings.</p><p>Thanks!<br/>Please leave a kudos and comment! Flattery gets you everywhere!</p>
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